A Study on the Relationship between NIHSS and Distribution of Pattern Identification in Stroke Patients

중풍 환자의 NIHSS에 따른 중풍 변증 분형 분포의 특성 연구

Objectives : This study was aim to investigate the relationship between NIHSS and distribution of pattern identification in stroke patients. Methods : 1471 participants from the patients hospitalized for stroke within 4 weeks from April 2007 to August 2009 were included. They were grouped according to the NIHSS score; group 1 for the participants whose NIHSS were less than six, group 2 for seven to fifteen, and group 3 for over than sixteen. And the patients were re-divided into two groups according to their post-onset interval. The difference of distribution of five pattern identification for each group were investigated. And five pattern identification were re-analyzed according to the deficiency-excess pattern identification. K-W test was used for statistical synthesis, and the result was regarded as significant one, if its p-value was below 0.05. Results : Dampness-phelegm pattern was the most frequent out of five patterns in total participants as well as all the subgroups. In group 3 with more serious neurological deficit, larger proportion of patients in early acute stage was diagnosed as excess pattern including Fire-Heat pattern. On the other side the proportion of Deficiency of Qi and Yin was larger in late convalescent stage of group 3 than in other groups. But nothing was statistically significant. Conclusions : Further study including patients with more variant classification with follow-up evaluation is needed to reflect the real characteristics of stroke population.