RESUMO
The clinical and mechanism studies of acupuncture and moxibustion in treatment of dementia from modern literature in recent 15 years are reviewed. In clinical studies, changes of scores for relative dementia scale and daily life scale, relative laboratory indexes, imaging indexes and physical diagnostic indexes after acupuncture are explored. In studies of mechanisms, dementia models are established with different methods and changes of various indexes were observed. Studies find that acupuncture and moxibustion can improve intelligence and social activity ability, increase therapeutic effect and have good effects on important indexes of dementia. However, the criteria for diagnosis, therapeutic effects, syndrome standardization, evaluation of long-term therapeutic effects and prognosis for dementia still need to be further studied.