According to research from Taiwan, patients with dementia who received regular acupressure treatments were calmer, wandered less and appeared less restless.

Acupressure is a Chinese healing technique, a relative to acupuncture that uses manual massage of specific pressure points instead of the insertion of needles. In the Taiwan study that appeared in the February 2007 edition of the Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20 patients underwent twice-a-day 15-minute sessions, five days a week. When treatments stopped after four weeks, the patients regressed and became more agitated.

"Agitated behavior in people with dementia is a major concern for caregivers," says study co-author Li-Chan Lin, PhD, RN, a professor at the Institute of Clinical Nursing at National Yang-Ming University. "It can endanger patients and others, make it necessary for them to be moved from familiar surroundings, and demoralize and psychologically distress caregivers."

Caregivers, says the professor, can learn the technique, making acupressure "an effective option that, following training, can be carried out at home."