ObjectiveTo provide a scoping review of the clinical studies of acupuncture on Alzheimer' s disease (AD). MethodsThe CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP, CBM, Web of Science, PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library databases, and ClinicalTrials.gov, ChiCTR clinical trial registration systems were searched to collect clinical studies on acupuncture treatment of AD from inception to May 14, 2022. Scope review method was used to summarize and analyze the publication year trend, type, degree of disease, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome differentiation, sample size, treatment plan, intervention time, and outcome. ResultsA total of 226 clinical original research were included. This field emerged in 1995 and has been increasing. The main type of clinical research was randomized controlled trials. 56 studies paid attention to the severity of AD. Only 54 studies classified AD according to different criteria of TCM syndrome differentiation. There were only 4 studies with large sample size (>200 cases). Conventional acupuncture was the main intervention method in clinical research, with a total of 129 articles. Electroacupuncture was the main special acupuncture method, a total of 31 articles. More than 70 % of the studies had a course of intervention between 84 and 168 days. Among the 12 types of outcome indicators, cognitive function, clinical efficiency, activity function evaluation, cerebrospinal fluid and blood biomarkers, and adverse reactions were the most concerned outcomes. However, less attention was paid to neuropsychiatric symptoms and quality of life in AD patients. Acupuncture could improve the cognitive function of AD patients, but the current clinical related mechanism research was shallow, and the acupuncture point selection was also more diverse. ConclusionThe clinical research of acupuncture in AD has formed a scale, but the current research type is single. The clinical research design schemes are various but not yet unified, and there is a lack of relevant authoritative TCM standards.