Abstract
A descriptive, comparative study was performed using female college students as experimental subjects. The primary objective was to compare the changes in pulse waves that take place during normalcy and during menstruation. The second objective was to compare the pulse waves of experimental subjects with severe menstrual pain and experimental subjects with minor or no menstrual pain during menstruation and during normalcy. The subjects of this experiment were female college students attending D University, located in Pusan, and the data were collected from September 2011 to February 2012. Their blood circulation index and pulse-wave factors were measured. During normalcy, these data were gauged a week to ten days after menstruation, and during menstruation, they were gauged two to three days after the start of menstruation, when the menstrual pain was at its peak. The results was as follows. In the characteristics of the blood circulation index, the index increased during menstruation, resulting in an increase in only the blood volume of the left ventricle. And the pulse energy of the left Chon, Kwan, Cheok and right Cheok were significantly higher during menstruation. Additionally, the average pulse energy in the left hand was distinctively lower in the menstrual group than in the normalcy group. There is a difference in blood pulse factors between normalcy and during menstruation, as well as a difference in blood pulse factors in experiment group without menstrual pain and experiment group with menstrual pain. These differences were particularly observed in the blood circulation index, pulse energy.
