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Post-stroke insomnia is a common complication that can hinder recovery and quality of life. This systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of acupuncture and related therapies for managing this condition, drawing on data from 107 randomised controlled trials involving 8,062 patients and 14 different acupuncture-related treatment approaches.
The analysis found that acupuncture-related therapies were broadly superior to Western medicine and conventional rehabilitation therapy when measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index total score. Among individual approaches, the combination of acupuncture, auriculotherapy, and electroacupuncture produced the best overall outcomes on this measure. For prolonging sleep duration and shortening the time taken to fall asleep, acupuncture alone, acupuncture combined with auriculotherapy and point embedding, and acupuncture combined with Western medicine all performed well. Point embedding achieved the best results for subjective sleep quality, warm acupuncture led on improving daily functional difficulties, and acupuncture alone ranked highest for reducing the overall degree of sleep disorder.
The authors noted that different acupuncture regimens may suit patients with different clinical presentations, and called for more standardised, high-quality clinical trials to confirm findings and identify optimal treatment protocols.
Conclusion: Acupuncture and related therapies appear to have a positive effect on post-stroke insomnia, with combined treatment approaches generally outperforming single-modality interventions, though treatment choice should be tailored to individual patient presentations.
Source: Tang J, Tan H, Xiao L and colleagues. Medicine (2026). View on PubMed (PMID 42566606) · doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000050081
