Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine最新文献

The effects of mechanical stimulation on various skin areas on rectal motility were examined in anesthetized rats as a model of human. The rectal motility was measured by the balloon method at a position about 4–6 cm from the anus. Mechanical stimulation of the perineum induced a characteristic contraction of the rectum. Stimulation of the other skin areas did not produce any responses in the rectal motility. After the spinal transection at the 1st to 2nd cervical level, stimulation on the hindpaw and lower abdomen as well as the perineum induced the characteristic contraction of the rectum. These responses were abolished by severance of the pelvic nerves. After the severance of the sympathetic nerves innervating the rectum, the rectal motility increased its frequency, behind which the stimulation-induced responses were hidden and could not be observed. These results indicate that rectal motility was modulated by cutaneous mechanical stimulation through a segmental spinal reflex mechanism in anesthetized rats.

The electrocardiogram is a representative signal containing information about the condition of the heart. The shape and size of the P-QRS-T wave, the time intervals between its various peaks, etc., may contain useful information about the nature of disease afflicting the heart. However, the human observer cannot directly monitor these subtle details. Besides, since bio-signals are highly subjective, the symptoms may appear at random in the time scale. Therefore, the heart rate variability signal parameters, extracted and analyzed using computers, are highly useful in diagnostics. Analysis of heart rate variation (HRV) has become a popular non-invasive tool for assessing the activities of the autonomic nervous system. HRV analysis is based on the concept that fast fluctuations may specifically reflect changes of sympathetic and vagal activity. It shows that the structure generating the signal is not simply linear, but also involves nonlinear contributions. This work is an attempt made to do a quantitative study on the effect of reflexology on the HRV during reflexologic stimulation. The nonlinear parameters are evaluated for this study and the results obtained for 20 subjects are tabulated.

Context: Depression is one of the most common and painful forms of mental suffering. Treatment with acupuncture may help to alleviate, transform and perhaps eliminate symptomology.

Objective: To determine if acupuncture’s extraordinary vessels are effective in treating major depressive disorder.

Design: Observational, mixed-method, pilot study.

Setting: Participants were recruited through a newspaper advertisements and prescreened for Major Depressive Disorder.

Participants: Ten men and women (34–66 years of age), screened for Major Depressive Disorder, were treated with acupuncture.

Interventions: Acupuncture’s extraordinary vessels – treatment involved four weeks of twice weekly acupuncture treatments followed by four weeks of once weekly treatments.

Main Outcome Measures: Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). Beck and Reynolds Depression Inventories.

Results: Those who completed the treatments showed significant improvement on both the Beck and Reynolds Depression Inventories and on retakes of the SCID suggesting that acupuncture can provide significant relief from depression in both men and women.

Primary objectives: To explore the current level of computerization in clinical practice of acupuncturists in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Methods and procedures: A self-completed, one-page two-sided, questionnaire was sent to the sample via mail, and a second mailing was sent to those who had not replied after 14 days. The Sample consisted of 367 listed acupuncturists registered with the Chinese Medicine Council of Hong Kong in 2002.

Main outcomes and results: We received 162 questionnaires from this mailed survey. After deducting those who had moved (n=37), we calculated a response rate of 49.1%. Male respondents accounted for 72.2% (n=117) of replies, and 46 respondents (28.9%) had used computer in their practices. The present analyses provide evidence that acupuncturists’ current overall level of knowledge and use of computers in clinical practice is far from optimal. At best, only about 5.3% and 2.9% of acupuncturists in the study sample had computerized 5–8 clinical and 5–8 administrative functions, respectively.

Conclusions: In Hong Kong primary health care systems place much emphasis on quality outcomes and cost reduction. In order to achieve these goals, apparatus that allows greater accountability represents a means by which healthcare providers and policy makers can exercise greater control over healthcare services. Thus, implementation of computer systems in clinical practice can be seen as a prominent part of this overall philosophy. The present study has systematically documented the extent of clinical computer use in HK, identified areas for improvement, as well as specific groups of acupuncturists who might benefit from targeted efforts to promote computerization in the practice.

In this manuscript, I describe a research agenda appropriate to the acupuncture community that is designed to fundamental questions of interest to patients and practitioners. The agenda would help schools focus their training to prepare practitioners to meet the needs of the patients who come to them, would prepare practitioners to be confident of the ways in which they can help patients and when they cannot, and would prepare patients to be more savvy and appropriate consumers of acupuncture. I describe 13 top research priorities. For each research priority, I describe why it is important to our general understanding of acupuncture, what type of data or experiments are needed to answer these questions and what groups of acupuncturists can best answer these questions.

The author asserts, that each point of Principal meridian renders differential influence on a skeletal musculation. Particularly on each muscle renders direct influence four points, though there are also exceptions. Whereas the quantity of muscles size constant, occurs an opportunity to prognosticate opening new points. The creation of the completed system of active points of a body will enable to lead Qi in any site of a skeletal musculation of the person, and system will allow to describe interrelation between akupoints and skeletal muscles. And though the belonging of points to a concrete meridian is defined by their direct influence on an internal body usually appropriate to the name of a meridian. Nevertheless, this difficult process of identification is easier for beginning from interrelation akupoints and skeletal muscles. The detailed description of influence of each concrete point on sites of skeletal muscles, internal bodies, veins, arteries will frame an opportunity to consider very exact influence of each point on all organism as a whole. On an example of the Lung meridian will are considered general principles of interaction between akupoints and skeletal musculation. Muscularly––tendon meridians described in the ancient medical treatises to the given work have no any attitude.