• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.41-58
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• 2023

Objectives: This retrospective observational study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of Cheongpebaedok-tang, a traditional Korean herbal medicine, provided via telemedicine to patients with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19 in Korea. Methods: From February to April 2020, a retrospective analysis investigated COVID-19 patients treated via Korean telemedicine. The study involved asymptomatic to mild cases receiving Cheongpebaedok-tang more than three times, along with continuous Korean medicine care in convalescence. Diagnoses and treatment adhered to the telemedicine guidelines of the Association of Korean Medicine, with varied Cheongpebaedok-tang prescriptions based on symptom severity. Symptom evaluation involved a detailed assessment using a 15-item tool at initial and final sessions. Results: The study included 27 patients, with a mean age of 48.7 ± 2.3 years (mean ± standard error). Patients began self-administering oral Cheongpebaedok-tang for an average of 19.4 ± 1.8 days after the date of COVID-19 diagnosis confirmation and continued the medication for 15.8 ± 1.2 days. The reported side effects of the Cheongpebaedok-tang included palpitations (11.1%), insomnia (7.4%), dizziness (3.7%), and diarrhea (3.7%). All side effects disappeared after adjusting the prescription according to standard treatment guidelines. The occurrence of all COVID-19-related adverse symptoms, except fatigue and myalgia, decreased. Fatigue was the most common chronic symptom persisting after 6 months (51.9%), followed by ocular symptoms (37.0%) and sore throat (22.2%). Conclusions: This study implies Cheongpebaedok-tang may offer a potentially safe, symptom-alleviating approach for managing mild COVID-19 cases via telemedicine, although further comprehensive research is warranted.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.56-68
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• 2001

Objective : Functional brain mapping study on acupuncture stimulation using the [14C]2-deoxyglucose([14C]2-DG) autoradiography provides quantitative data and visualized pathway in central nervous system(CNS). We aimed to investigate the neural pathway and spatial distribution of metabolic activity elicited in CNS on electroacupuncture stimulation using [14C]2-DG autoradiography. Methods : The study were divided into three groups by stimulation times. 45-mins stimulation group according to Sokoloffs method, 5-mins stimulation group according to Duncun's method, and 15-mins stimulation group. ;A venous catheter was equipped into right jugular vein. The rats (Sprague-Dawley rats, 230-260g) were kept fastened loosely on a holding platform without anesthesia. Electroacupuncture stimulation (5 ms, 2 Hz, 1~3 mA) were applied on the left Zusanli (ST36) acupoint and [14C]2-DG ($25{\mu}Ci/rat$) injection was performed through the catheter. After sacrifice, the brain and the spinal cord were made to sections for film image. The film images were digitalized as the isotope concentration based upon comparison of optical densities with that of the standards and normalized by the optical density of corpus callosum. Results : 1. 15-mins stimulation group was most effective among 3 experiments. 2. On 15-mins stimulation group, medial geniculate nucleus, intetpeduncular nucleus intermedius, ventral periolivary nucleus, caudal periolivary nucleus, medial superior olive, lateral paragigantocellular nucleus, including hypothalamic arcuate nucleus were increased by more than 25% (at least, p<0.05) by electroacupuncture stimulation. 3. Especially, the metabolism in hypothalamic arcuate nucleus was increased by 90% (p<0.05). 4. The fact that arcuate nucleus of hypothalamus might play a role of interconnection area between ascending and descending pathway of acupuncture stimulation was demonstrated visually. Conclusions : Advanced study on electroacupuncture stimulation elicited significant increase of metabolic activity in various nuclei of hypothalamus will provide the important experimental basis in research of the relationship between electroacupuncture stimulation and internal visceral functions.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.150-164
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• 2009

1. Objectives This study was to designed investigate the relationship between hypertension and its risk factors and the prevalence of hypertension according to Sasang Constitution. 2. Methods Five hundred and twenty six people were subjects out of 666 people, over 40 years old, who participated in the community-based cohort in Wonju, South Korea from July 2nd to August 30th in 2006. Hypertensive group was 263 peoples and normal group was 263 people, selected randomly among non hypertensive people who had same age and sex with hypertensive groups. Sasang Constitutional Diagnosis was carried out using PSSC(Phonetic System of Sasang Constitution), face and tongue photos and a checkup list. Risk factors from blood samples, physical measurements and social indices were analyzed using SPSS. 3. Results The prevalence of hypertension in Taeeumin was 63.1%(N=166), that of Soeumin was 22.4%(N=59) and that of Soyangin was 14.4%(N= 38). Considering risk factors of hypertension, there weren't any differences between two groups in social support indices and Framingham type A score. But scores of Soeumin's and Soyangin's were significantly high compared with that of Taeeumin in female normal group. There were significantly high results in Adiponectin of Soeumin's and HDL-cholesterol of female Soyangin's and HOMA-IR of Taeeumin's than any other groups. Crude OR of Taeeumin was 2.18 as compared with that of Soeumin in terms of risk of hypertension, and OR of Taeeumin was 2.02 as compared with that of Soeumin after drinking, smoking, total cholesterol, fasting blood sugar and HOMA-IR were adjusted. But after BMI was adjusted there wasn't a significance between Soeumin and Taeeumin and the OR of more than 25 was 2.42 as compared with that of less than 23 in BMI. 4. Conclusions Sasang Constitution is thought to be the reasonable variable to control hypertension in terms of prevention, treatment and regimen. And constitution is needed as a good variable to make a cohort study concerning chronic diseases, especially hypertension.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.30 no.6C
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• pp.585-592
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• 2005

One of the most important things in the researches on diseases is to attach more importance to prevention of a disease and preservation of health than to treatment of a disease, also to foods rather than to medicines. In this context, the most significant concern in examining a patient is to find the presence of disease, and, if any, to diaguose the type of disease, after which a pharmacotherapy is followed. In this paper, various diagnosis methods of Oriental medicines are discussed. And ocular inspection, the most important method among the 4 disease diagnoses of Oriental medicines, is studied. Observing a person's shape and color has been the major method for ocular inspection, which usually has been dependent upon doctor's intuition as of these days. We are developing an automatic system which provides objective basic data for ocular inspection. As the first stage, we applied the signal processing techniques to automatic feature extraction of faces for ocular inspection. Firstly, facial regions are extracted from the point of frontal view, which was followed by extraction of their features. The experiment applied to 20 persons showed that frontal face regions are perfectly extracted, as well as their features, such as eyes, eyebrows, noses and mouths. Future work will seek to address the issues of morphological operation for a few unfinished extraction results, such as combined hair and eyebrows.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.25-29
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• 2012

Objectives : This article reviews a solution preventing the illegal distribution of herbal medicine in common use for food and medicine and risks on public health by conducting safety management of food and medicine. Also, this article would like to contribute to improvement of public health treating diseases in compliance with accurate diagnosis and prescription of Oriental Medicine Doctor("OMD")'s. Methods : An approach in this research can be categorized into two : first, to examine the current administrative situation and problems of herbal medicine in common use for food and medicine based on policy documents of Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Food and Drug Adminstration("KFDA") and academic articles of the herbal medicine;second, to find reasonable administrative solutions to solve the problems. Solutions : A solution is to strengthen the management level of herbal medicine in common use for food and medicine by selecting 117 items as target items requiring concentrated management. In case herbal medicine is imported for food, KFDA strengthens the quality management level of herbal medicine by making use of inspection frequency at random, collecting and verifying herbal medicine on the market. However, KFDA decides to maintain current different quality specification system of food and medicine reflecting a civil complaint that quality specification of food and medicine should separately managed according to the purpose of use. Herbal medicine as medicine that is functioned as treating diseases and alleviating symptoms, unlike herbal medicine for food, can cure all kinds of diseases by recovering inner balance of human body, making use of other properties of herbal medicine. Medicine has its own properties. If a doctor uses properties of medicine appropriately, he cures diseases. If a doctor uses herbal medicine inappropriately. he may damage human body. Thus, whether side effects of medicine depend on a doctor who uses herbal medicine. Conclusions : All herbal medicine will be supplied into the market after strict safety control of manufacturers of herbal medicine according to the revised Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, beginning in April, 2012. Thus, people can take safer and more reliable herbal medicine through strengthening safety management of herbal medicine and improving quality and transparency in the distribution system. Herbal medicine should appropriately be prescribed by licensed OMD because herbal medicine is used to treat diseases and alleviate symptoms, unlike herbal medicine for food.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.115-122
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• 2010

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to propose the utilization plan of Ryodoraku in the U-health care systems. Methods : Computerized literature searches were performed for Ryodoraku related articles using the following databases: KISS, RISS, DBPIA, NDSL from 1990 to Oct 2010. Search terms were '양도락' or 'Ryodoraku' or 'U-health'. Due to Ryodoraku coming from Japan, additional literature review(articles published by 2008) on Japanese journal of Ryodoraku medicine was done for compensation. Results : 1. Introduction of U-health : As rapid progress of population aging and strong interest in health, the demand for the traditional Korean medical service is increasing. Until now healthcare service has provided post treatment by face-to-face manner. But according to related researches, proactive treatment is resulted to be more effective for preventing diseases. Particularly, the existing healthcare services have limitations in preventing and managing chronic geriatric degenrative diseases such as metabolic syndrome, CVA, coronary heart diseases, parkinson's diseases, degenerative joint disease, spondylosis, etc., because the cause of the above is complex and even related to life habit. As the advent of ubiquitous technology, patients with the chronic geriatric degenrative diseases can improve life habit such as poor eating habits and physical inactivity without the constraints of time and space through u-healthcare service. Therefor, lots of researches for u-healthcare service focus on providing the personalized healthcare service for preventing and managing that. To cope with this situations, The concept of u-healthcare service should be adopted in the traditional korean medicine and diagnostic devices suitable for it should be also devised and developed based on traditonal korean medine. 2. Review of existing Ryodoraku related articles for applying to U-health : articles investigating feasibility applying Ryodoraku to meridian diagnosis and raising problems of it, articles providing recent research trends of Ryodoraku, Ryodoraku related articles considering usefulness for U-health, and articles confirming the repeatability and reproducity of Ryodoraku were included. Based on the review of the above Ryodoraku related articles, several application of Ryodoraku in the U-health care system. Conclusions : To make preparations for the increasing need of traditional Korean medicine due to rising morbidity rate of chronic geriatric degenerative diseases, it is necessary to appropriately apply Ryodoraku to the U-health care system. The application of Ryodoraku is as follows. 1. To use Ryodoraku additionally to the established diagnostic device of metabolic syndrome, CVA, coronary heart diseases, parkinson's diseases, degenerative joint disease, spondylosis. 2. To apply Ryodoraku to the symptoms or diseases having a tendency to be diagnosed by correlation between the affected meridian and the lesion such as headache, nuchal pain, shoulder pain, low back pain, sciatica, HNP, etc. 3. To secure the repeatability and reproducity of Ryodoraku. 4. To devise and develop Ryodoraku appliance in order to overcome the known drawbacks and to improve error of measurement.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.3-43
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• 2016

The North Korean medical laws are consisted of 'People's Health Act' and 'Medical Act' in the peak of the North Korean constitutional law. Before the legislation of 'People's Health Act', a number of medical laws and regulations existed. But, at present, there is no information about its amendment and effectiveness. 'People's Health Act' legislated in 1980 declared fundamental principles and policies of the North Korean health care system. 'Medical Act' legislated in 1997 is the basic law among the North Korean medical laws. It presented the goals and fundamental principles of the North Korean health care, and then regulated the basics about 'Tests and Diagnosis', 'Medical Treatment', and 'Medical Appraisal'. 'Medical Act' of North Korea was established later than South Korea, and its provisions is smaller in number. And there are lots of abstract and declaratory provisions compare with South Korean 'Medical Act'. Especially there is no provision about the kind and requirements of medical personnel and medical institutions, so it is hard to grasp the North Korean health care system at once. Regarding the medical treatment, there are many similar contents between the North and South Korean 'Medical Act'. But, the provisions, such as regarding mixing the new medicine and the korean traditional medicine, encouraging natural therapies in medical treatment, and informing the patient's protector of bad diagnostic result if there is concern to have a bad influence on patient, are different from the South Korean 'Medical Act'.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.89-101
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• 2001

The conventional pattern-methods for discrimination of acupoint, meridian line which is the basic object of diagnosis and medical treatment in oriental medicine is discriminated the conduction point by the stimulation in body skin with DC. But, it is not sufficient to truth in discrimination ratio, coincident ratio, body effect, reproductivity. Therefore, this paper is extracting the optimal parameter of frequency and waveform in order to improve the conventional pattern, and proposing the SPAC(Single Power Alternative Current) stimulus pattern applying that. Also, this algorithm proposes to be able to discriminate with low pressure of the electrode by displaying in the level meter both the absolution and relation value of the skin current. It is able to decrease pain and body effect by electrode pressure and discriminate acupoint regardless of skin current in difficult discrimination spot. It is compared the performance of system applying the extracted optimal parameter and algorithm, and it is confirmed that there is difference in discrimination parameter of acupoint reacted to the individual and the meridian. It is compared that discrimination, coincident ratio of the traditional acupoints as the acupoint stimulation pattern. It is confirmed truth of optimal parameter and discrimination algorithm. Keyword: Meridian, Discrimination, Coincident, Body effect, Reproductivity, SPAC, Optimal parameter.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.31-41
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• 2018

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to establish the basis of the assessment tools that can be used for the diagnosis and assessment of skin diseases by reviewing the present status of the assessment tools used in domestic and overseas traditional medicine papers for the past five years. Methods : This study is based on analysis of papers on clinical trials about atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, acne, urticaria published from 1st July 2013 to 30th June 2018. The papers were searched from Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System(OASIS), Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal(KTKP), Pubmed, MEDLINE. Results : 40 articles on atopic dermatitis, 34 articles on psoriasis, 26 articles on acne and 10 articles on urticaria were selected. Among them, 38 articles(90%), 20 articles(85%), 22 articles(85%) and 5 articles(50%) used assessment tools in order. Conclusions : SCoring Atopic Dermatitis(SCORAD), objective SCORing of Atopic Dermatitis index(OSI), Eczema Area and Severity Index(EASI) were used in studies on atopic dermatitis. In the case of psoriasis, The Psoriasis Area and Severity Index(PASI) was used in most papers. In the study on acne, most of Korean papers used Korean Acne Grading System(KAGS), but in the overseas papers, various assessment tools were used. In the case of urticaria, the rate of use of the assessment tool was the lowest, but the assessment tool used was unified by Urticaria Activity Score(UAS). Since skin diseases can cause stress and a decrease in quality of life, the quality of life should be taken into account when evaluating treatment effects.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.76-86
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• 2014

Objective : This study was performed to find out the differential points of the pattern identification for Acne vulgaris and suggest them to the clinic setting Methods : We searched the papers that suggest patterns identification for Acne vulgaris through China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI), Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System(OASIS), Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal(KTKP), Korean Studies Information Service System(KISS). We looked through all the papers, excluded unintended papers, and finally chose some papers that are suitable for inclusion. Then, We extracted all the patterns of Acne vulgaris and chose frequently suggested patterns. Finally we extracted symptoms from selected patterns and arranged them in order of frequency. Results and Conclusions : 1. We found 215 papers and chose 17 papers (Korean : 6, Chinese : 11). 2. We extracted total 67 demonstrations and chose Patterns of Wind-Heat, Damp-Heat, Phlegm and Static blood, Disharmony of the Thoroughfare and Controlling vessels. 3. In Acne vulgaris, the pattern of Wind-Heat tends to have a red papule, sometimes pustule, pain with itching, burning sensation, tidal reddening of the cheeks, white head or black head. The pattern of Damp-Heat tends to have a pustule, node, redness and swelling, pain and greasy skin. The pattern of Phlegm and Static blood has a tendency to be a nodule or cystoma that is hard, dark, painful, long lasting and hard to recover and easy to recur with a scar, pimple, pigmentation. The pattern of Disharmony of the Thoroughfare and Controlling vessels tends to be exacerbated before menstruation, have a small papule that is not easily treated under the chin or around the mouth.