Is acupuncture an alternative for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease?

It has been proposed that acupuncture has several benefits for patients with Parkinson’s disease. However, its real clinical effect is still under discussion.

To answer this question we used Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach.

We identified nine systematic reviews including 53 studies overall, of which 45 were randomized trials. We concluded acupuncture might have a small effect in improving motor symptoms and disability in Parkinson’s disease, but the certainty of the evidence is low.