OBJECTIVETo observe clinical curative effect of Shenxiong Bushen Capsule for the treatment of mild vascular dementia (VaD), and probe the partial mechanism.

METHODSWith a block random, double-blinded and controled clinical research method adopted, seventy patients with VaD were randomly assigned to two groups in a ratio of 5:2, including 50 cases in the trial group and 20 cases in the control group. The patients in the trial group were given the Shenxiong Bushen Capsule (5 tablets, thrice a day), while those in the control group were given Piracetam (5 tablets, twice a day). All patients of the two groups were treated for 2 months, and one third cases were follow-up surveyed for 1 month. The cognitive ability, the activities of daily living, Chinese medicine syndrome of VaD, and the quality of life were measured respectively before and after the treatment.

RESULTSAccording to the Mini-Mental State Examination, the clinical effects of patients showed that there was insignificant difference between the trial group (total effective rate was 74.46% and 80.85%, respectively) and the control group (total effective rate was 68.42% and 78.95%, respectively) on the cognitive ability and the activities of daily living (P > 0.05), while the curative effect of the trial group (total effective rate was 85.11%) was superior to that of the control group (total effective rate was 63.16%) on Chinese medicine syndrome of VaD, and had significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.05). The results measured by WHOQOL-SF36 indicated that the total scores and the scores of each field in both the trial group and the control group after treatment increased more than those of before treatment (P < 0.01, P < 0.05), except physical function (PF) field and role physical (RP) field of the control group (P > 0.05). The scores of the trial group about total body, PF field, RP field and vitality (VT) field increased more than those of the control group (P < 0.05); while no difference was shown between the trial group and control group in the scores of bodily pain field, role emotional field, general health field, social function field and mental health field (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONShenxiong Bushen Capsule has a definite curative effect on mild VaD, and it can improve the quality of life of patients. Adopting the SF36 Scale to evalute the quality of life of patients with VaD has significance and avaibility to some extent.