Clinical Study On Treating Urinary Incontinence After Stroke With Acupuncture Therapy

In China, there are 2million new stroke patients every year, 1.5million patients died of it. The number of survive patients is up to 6 million to 7 million, among those, 75% live with sequelae. Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common complication of stroke, related research shows that 32%-79% stroke in-patient complicated with UI, 12%-19% remained after discharged. UI appears in the acute stage of stroke can be a important predicted factor of death, severe crippledom and hospitalized time. Stroke patients without UI recovered faster than those with UI. Patients with UI complicated with cognitive handicap, depression, soreness and sleeping disorder are more often than those without UI. UI influenced the living quality of stroke patients. As one of the important composition of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture therapy is characterized with simple, convenient, cheap and effective. This research is a clinical study which applied acupuncture therapy to treat UI after stroke, to explore a new effective therapy for treating UI after stroke.objective: to study the treatment of urinary incontinence after stroke by acupuncture therapy and to evaluate its outcome. To explore the influence on prognosis of stroke by treating UI with acupuncture.Methods: the research discussed the clinical treatment effect on treating urinary incontinence after stroke. 60 Patients were randomly divided into a treatment group (n=30) and a control group (n=30) . All the patients were given regular treatment according to the stroke treating guidelines. Based on this, the treatment group was given acupuncture therapy by using these acupoints: lieque(LU7), sanyinjiao(SP6), taixi(KI3), taichong(LR3), zhongji(RN3), guanyuan(RN4). Connected with a electric stimulator, used the frequency of 100Hz, 30 minutes each time, once everyday, treated one month. Before and after the treatment, UI degree and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) were used to evaluate the treatment before and after the treatment.Result: after one month, the effective rate(96. 66%) of the treatment group in UI was superior to the control group (46. 66%) with significant differences (P<0. 01). The Score of FIM of the two groups after treatment shows great difference(P<0.01). In one month of treatment, there was no urinary system infection happened in the treatment group, while 5 cases happened in the control group. It indicated that acupuncture is effective in treating UI after stroke, reduced the happening of urinary system infection, and improved the prognosis of stroke.Conclusion: The effect of acupuncture treating UI after stroke was remarkable. The acupuncture therapy is an effective and easy-operated therapy to UI after stroke, worth to generalize in clinic.