Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Email: glanza oasi. Recently, there has been increasing interest toward nonpharmacological approaches for dementia and associated clinical manifestations, such as depression, with the common goal to improve health and quality of life of both patients and caregivers. In this scenario, the role of Shiatsu is of clinical and research interest, although to date a definitive recommendation on a systematic use in clinical practice cannot be made.
We found a significant adjuvant effect of Shiatsu for depression in these patients and hypothesized a neuroendocrine-mediated action on the neural circuits implicated in mood and affect regulation. However, this finding must be considered preliminary and requires confirmation in larger-scale controlled studies, possibly extending the range of outcome measures and including predictors of response.
Future investigations should also include an objective assessment of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical axis functioning. Keywords: alternative medicine, cognitive function, dementia, depression, health services.
More than 35 billion people worldwide have dementia and the number is rapidly rising with increased longevity. Particularly, late-life depression is frequently associated with apathy and emotional lability, thus significantly worsening the burden of care. While antidepressant and antipsychotic medications may offer control of some symptoms, they have a number of potential side effects, mainly due to the hypersensitivity of the aging brain, the decreased hepatic and kidney drug metabolism, and the complex and often unpredictable interactions with other drugs concomitantly taken.
As such, doses require regular adjustments and different drugs are frequently changed. In recent years, there has been an increased interest toward the possibility of nonpharmacological approaches against dementia and associated clinical manifestations, with the common goal to improve cognition, mood, behavior, and, ultimately, quality of life. In this scenario, the potential effect of Shiatsu, a popular technique of complementary and alternative medicine based on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, is of increasing clinical interest.
