[Acupuncture treatment for a patient with prolonged consciousness disturbance after a brain tumor surgery]

Acupuncture has long been applied as a therapeutic technique in China, Japan, Korea and other countries. Recently, its application began to be extended to the treatment of neural disorders. We experienced a 13-year-old boy with prolonged consciousness disturbance after a pineal tumor surgery and muscle contracture of lower extremity by long-term recumbency. We applied him acupuncture treatment for 4 months which was effective to alleviate these symptoms. Repeated IMP SPECT showed improvement of the cerebral blood flow (CBF) during the course of acupuncture therapy. Acupuncture was effective to improve prolonged coma after a brain surgery and also muscle contracture by long-lasting recumbency. CBF showed a slight increase along with the recovery of consciousness suggesting a strong relevance between CBF and improvement of these symptoms.