Medical Acupuncture最新文献

Recently unearthed Tinhui Medical Slips, dating back to 2nd century BCE, demonstrates the 12th meridian in Chinese medicine as an anatomy-based discovery. This is equivalent to the persistent median artery, which was later incorporated into Neijing meridian theory and set the foundation for traditional acupuncture today.

Background: In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of patients seeking information from online health websites. As the information available on these websites can significantly impact the overall health of individuals in a society, it is vital for online health information to be presented in a manner that is readable and credible to the general public. To address this concern, the objective of the study was to examine and assess the credibility and readability of websites about acupuncture as a pain management approach.

Methods: The research population was represented by websites containing information about pain management using acupuncture found through Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines and with the keywords acupuncture and pain. The websites were evaluated in terms of confirming HON and JAMA criteria. FRE, GFI, FKGL, CLI, SMOG, and ARI indexes were used to assess their readability, and Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare the data.

Results: This study evaluated 52 websites that appeared on the first three pages of search engine results. Out of the 52 websites analyzed, 40 websites (76.9%) met the validity criteria set by JAMA, while only 21 websites (40.4%) were deemed valid based on the HONcode standards. According to the average readability index (12.38), the contents presented on the websites were at the Difficult to Read level. The mean readability scores of websites across various domains exhibit no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: The majority of websites that provide acupuncture-related information do meet the verification set by HONcode. Additionally, the scientific and educational content on these websites tends to be more complex than what is recommended by the AMA and NIH. This is concerning given the increasing popularity of online content and the impact it has on public health. Providers of this information must prioritize making it readable to a wide audience.

Background: Puberty menorrhagia, characterized by prolonged and excessive menstrual bleeding between menarche and 19 years of age, presents clinical challenges at adolescents and it is attributed to an immature hypothalamo-pituitary-ovarian axis, leading to sustained high estrogen levels and anovulation. This case report explores the efficacy of acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy for pubertal menorrhagia of a 16-year-old female with a history of irregular menstrual cycles and excessive bleeding for 41 days.

Methodology: Based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) tongue and pulse diagnostics of the patient, acupuncture needling at SP4 (Gongsun), PC 6 (Neiguan), KI 14 (Siman), SP 10 (Xuehai), LR 1 (Dadun), CV 6 (Qihai) was given once in a day for a month, each session lasting 20 min targeting to alleviate Liver blood stasis.

Result: Following 6 days of treatment, bleeding ceased completely, and subsequent ultrasound assessments after a month revealed reductions in uterine, ovarian size, and complete resolution of endometrial thickening. Onset of next menstruation was on time after a month of acupuncture treatment.

Conclusion: These outcomes show acupuncture based on TCM diagnosis has promising effect as an adjunctive therapy for pubertal menorrhagia, regulating the menstrual cycle by improving reproductive health. Further research is warranted to assess the long-term treatment effect.

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practices such as acupuncture and cupping have been practiced for thousands of years and recently gained more popularity and recognition because of their benefits. However, these practices are not unique to Eastern cultures and countries. The healing practices of folk healers like the sobadores of Indigenous communities in Latin America share striking similarities to their TCM counterparts, although not much literature exists on this topic. An example of this parallelism is the practice of cupping in TCM and Native American (NA) ventosas.

Conclusions: Understanding the background, practices, and perception of folk healers among patients may lead to better outcomes and improve overall patient satisfaction in the management of acute and chronic conditions. This narrative review will analyze the history and practice of TCM cupping and ventosas in NA cultures.

Background: Medical education in North America was shaped by a biomedically bounded framework dating back to the early nineteenth century. Yet, one renowned physician, William Osler (1849-1919), seemed to stand out among his contemporaries by promoting acupuncture as a form of treatment. Some physicians in the early 1970s proposed that Osler was ahead of his time by including acupuncture in his medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892). Others, however, dismissed this notion based on an alleged biographical account that Osler's only witnessed acupuncture treatment was embarrassingly ineffective.

Objective: The question that should garner more attention from the medical acupuncturist is not whether Osler was an acupuncturist. The key question should be: Why was Osler not an acupuncturist? This article explores what may have discouraged William Osler from pursuing and promoting acupuncture as a legitimate system of medicine.

Methods: This research includes the analysis of all primary and secondary sources connecting William Osler to acupuncture, including The Principles and Practice of Medicine, The Life of Sir William Osler, The Evolution of Modern Medicine, and Bibliotheca Osleriana. Additional sources, including research by two prominent Osler scholars, letters, bulletins, archives, and film, were evaluated.

Results: Analysis of all available historical material demonstrates compelling evidence that Osler was not an acupuncturist. Contributing factors included limited access to knowledge, inadequate training, and prevailing attitudes during his lifetime.

Conclusions: Creating a more prominent place for medical acupuncture in healthcare requires deep reflection into the history of what forms a physician's worldview. Understanding what led to Osler's knowledge and attitude toward acupuncture could inspire innovative strategies to encourage more Western physicians to train in East Asian medicine and integrate it into practice.

Some prominent contemporary acupuncture pundits have published assertions that when the Huangdi Neijing was written 2000+ years ago, acupuncture clinicians had no knowledge of anatomy and "limited" clinical knowledge. Historical records as well as medical literature published over the past hundred years evidence those claims are grossly inaccurate. Those erroneous reports have likely contributed to the negative views of acupuncture that continue to be promulgated in the Western (allopathic) medical literature by prominent academic physicians and researchers: specifically, that acupuncture lacks a proper scientific basis, and that its clinical benefits most likely result from a potent ("enhanced") placebo effect. The purpose of this review is to provide an accurate description of the extensive anatomical, physiological, and clinical knowledge of the founders of the acupuncture tradition, as reflected in both historical records and peer-reviewed literature. These data evidence that acupuncture is scientifically based in human anatomy and physiology, and further provide clues to acupuncture's mechanisms.