Helping Dogs with Stroke

Dogs have strokes (cerebral infarct) just as humans do, and are likely to benefit from treatments shown to help human stroke patients. For example, acupuncture has been shown to increase brain glucose metabolism in human stroke patients. Because the brain runs on glucose, increased glucose metabolism benefits stroke patients.

Research, conducted in China at Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital Academy of Medical Sciences, demonstrated that acupuncture at a single point increased glucose metabolism in many areas of the brain, including frontal and temporal lobes and in the cerebellum. The acupuncture point treated was Triple Heater five (TH 5), also called Triple Burner or San Jiao five (SJ 5).

Researchers using PET and CT scans precisely measured brain glucose metabolism and showed significant increases in the treated group compared with controls.

It is likely that acupuncture at TH 5 would benefit a significant number of dogs and cats, especially geriatric pets whose thinking has become sluggish. This is an easy point to reach on the foreleg and families can be taught how to gently massage this point at home to sustain benefit between acupuncture treatments. TH 5 is 2 cun above the carpus (wrist) of the foreleg. A cun is about the space between ribs, thus two cun above the carpus is a proportionate distance.

For the full study see Effect of needling at Waiguan (SJ05) on brain glucose metabolism in patients with cerebral infarction by Liu ET, Wang SX, Huang Y, Lai XS, Tang CZ, Cui SY. Zhongguo Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi. 2013 Oct;33(10):1345-51. Weilun  PET Center, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou 510080, PRC. PMID: 24432677

 

Share this post