微電流經脈穴位刺激對改善睡眠及情緒之分析及評估

Abstract

隨著生活忙碌與工作壓力升高，情緒與睡眠已成為極為普遍的健康議題。根據世界衛生組織 (WHO)於2001 年報中指出，情緒疾病到2020 年將躍升至全球性疾病第二位。其中，憂鬱症更被稱 作是「二十一世紀的黑死病」。2002 年衛生署國民健康局之調查，15 歲以上的台灣民眾當中，8.9% 以上有中度憂鬱，5.2%有重度憂鬱，其數據遠高於WHO 所估計的全球盛行率3%，甚至高達15%的 憂鬱症患者會死於自殺。2000 年亞洲睡眠協會的調查中更顯示出，台灣中年男女約有78%，沒有獲 得良好的睡眠品質。而睡眠除了對認知與精神會有顯著的影響外，長期的睡眠障礙甚至與許多重大 心臟血管疾病，如高血壓、冠狀動脈疾病、中風、心衰竭等有高度相關性，故不可忽視其嚴重性。 微電流療法為美國 FDA 核可的醫療方法，可被用於治療失眠、憂鬱、焦燥相關問題，但目前並 未針對穴位進行刺激試驗評估成效。欣和生物科技公司將微電流療法技術與中醫經脈理論相結合， 開發出輕薄型微電流電刺激穴位器，初步實驗發現其效果比美國微電流療法更為顯著，已申請獲得 多國專利，因此本計畫結合交大腦科學中心之生理訊號分析能力進行腦波及心電訊號量測研究試 驗，並和臨床醫院配合希望能對單一穴位及多重穴位非侵入式的微電流刺激效應做一系統性的分析 及評估。

Recently, emotion and sleep had become to two popular health issues in the real life. According to the report from World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001, emotion related disease would climb to the second place among world wide diseases in the future. The depression (melancholia), one of the emotion diseases, is even named as the Black Death in 21 century. The investigation of Bureau of Health Promotion showed that there were 8.9% and 5.2% people for middle and serious depression, respectively, in Taiwan. This number outstripped the world wide prevalence of depression which was 3%, and there are 15% depressive patients would suicide. According to the study of Asian Sleep Research Society in 2002, 78% middle-aged person had bad sleep quality. The sleep not only had significant effect on body and mind, but also highly related to cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, apoplexy, etc., in a long time of sleep disorder. In conclusion, it is worthy of more studies to attach great importance to depression and insomnia. The technique of microcurrent electric therapy is approved by US FDA for the treatment of insomnia, depression and anxiety. However, there is no any current evaluation about the stimulation through acupuncture points. Synherb Biotechnology Co. combines the microcurrent stimulation technology with the Chinese medicine channel theories and found that the effects are much better than US microcurrent stimulation. Synherb also got several patents of Germany, Japan, US, China and Taiwan. Therefore, this project will integrate with the biomedical signal processing capabilities of Brain Research Center at National Chiao Tung University and the clinical experiences of the hospital to further study the effects of the noninvasive microcurrent stimulation of single or multiple acupuncture points for a systematic analysis and evaluation.