Abstract
Alzheimer's disease is a kind of neural degenerating diseases with progressive memory dysfunction and orientation impairments as the main symptoms. In the present study, we aimed at developing a painless and non-invasive rehabilitation method of dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT) using transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) as exterior stimulation to activate the central neural system. In our previous Studies, DAT patients were treated with TENS on the middle of the forehead. After the treatment, not only their cognitive function, but also the eye reflection movement to light, which is considered to be an index of the activity of acetylcholine, has also been improved. However, the patients received stimulation passively and the whole process was thought boring. To make the procedure more effective and more interesting, biofeedback training was combined with the pupil's pictures as its feedback information. The subjects (9 DAT patients) were treated with TENS as same as usual while a pair of glasses with a built-in-camera was put on simultaneously. As the pictures of their own eyes were shown on a screen monitor, the subjects were told to open their eyes as widely as possible. The training trial has been carried out for 30min every other day for 10 Sets completely. Immediately after the training, the parameters of eye reflection to light were improved and the performance of the cognitive scales was increased. Therefore, it is suggested that the method combined TENS with biofeedback training is effective on improving the eye reflection to light, which is considered relate to memory, as well as intelligence. However, there is no direct evidence that the brain has been activated and the probable mechanism is discussed in this paper.
