The Use of Acupuncture to Aid in Lumbar Puncture In A Patient With Dementia And Chronic Lumbar Pain: A Case Report
Author(s): Breno Milbratz
Abstract
It is estimated that up to 84% of adults experience low back pain at some point in their lives. With population aging, neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementias, are becoming more and more prevalent. Alzheimer’s disease still is the most frequent cause of dementia, ranging, on average, from 60-80% of cases in literature, but there are other secondary causes of dementia. Chronic pain in the elderly has increased in the United States and worldwide with population aging. Acupuncture is an oriental medicine method that has been gaining more attention and notoriety in modern medicine in recent years, with clinical trials and systematic reviews already showing its effectiveness in chronic low back pain. Here, we describe a case report of a hospitalized elderly patient with multiple comorbidities, chronic low back pain and dementia, which, due to comorbidities and medication intolerance, it was decided to start acupuncture sessions aiming pain control in order to perform the examination of cerebrospinal fluid by lumbar puncture and to define the best therapeutic strategy.