Background: Auricular acupressure is one of the traditional health care treatments in oriental medicine. Approximately, 30~40% of the cancer patients have said to be suffering from insomnia and half of them having chronic and severe insomnia at the same time. Insomnia caused cancer patients feel more pain, fatigue, depression and anxiety and it sometimes let the power to have the best of cancer pull down.
Objective: To investigate how effective the auricular acupressure treatment to cancer patients suffering from insomnia.
Results: Twelve cancer patients participated in this pilot study and there was no significant difference between control and treatment group. Only 7 of them had completed the whole treatment process, 4 patients of AAT group and 3 participants of SAT. The OSS of AAT group had increased from 34.0?.3 to 39.5?.1 and that of SAT group had increased from 38.3?.5 to 40.0?.0. There was no significant difference between them. The NRS of AAT group had increased from 6.3?.9 to 4.8?.1 and that of SAT group had increased from 7.0?.0 to 5.0?.6. No significant difference was observed between them.
Conclusion: Although both groups did not show significant differences, most of the experimental participants showed increasing OSS and NRS after treatments. Significant participants' number will be needed in the next study.