• Journal of Naturopathy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2024

Background: Manual acupressures in the correction and recovery of spinal deformities are known to be effective. However, they rely on therapists' skill and often require a long treatment time. The shortcomings of the manual therapy are anticipated to be effectively mitigated through self-gravitational acupressures (SGA) which stimulate multiple acupoints simultaneously with acupressure tools. Objective: The study aims to verify the effect of SGA for the correction of sagittal standing posture. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the postural improvements of the 93 subjects who underwent the SGA intervention, leveraging self-gravity for stimulating neck, back, pelvis, and calf areas both overall and sequentially using a set of acupressure tools equipped with multiple acupressing rods. Degree of posture abnormality was assessed before and after the SGA intervention using the photographic images of the subjects' sagittal standing postures, based on the angles of inclination of the upper body (from external auditory meatus to pelvis) and the lower body (from pelvis to malleolus) from the gravitational line passing through the hip joint. Results: After the SGA intervention, the upper body inclination angle was observed to decrease from an average of 3.2° to 1.6° (50.0% reduction, p<.001), and the lower body inclination angle decreased from an average of 3.5° to 3.2° (8.6% reduction, p<.01). Conclusion: The observed results underpin that SGA is effective for the correction of postural deformities. For the clinical application of SGA, prospective research is needed to optimize SGA protocol and acupressing tools and to validate long-term clinical efficacy.

• Journal of Naturopathy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.56-66
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• 2023

Background: Self-gravity acupressure (SGA), which complements the limitations of conventional manual therapies, is expected to have a positive effect on mood, closely related to reduction in stress. Purpose: This study aims to evaluate changes in mood states by SGA and to discuss its effects on stress relief and immunity. Methods: For 118 subjects (21 males and 97 females) who experienced the SGA program for 75 minutes, their mood states were assessed before and after the SGA session on 5 scales (0-4 points) using K-POMS consisting a total of 65 items grouped in six factors. For calculating the total mood disturbance score (iTMDs), the scores of the items in the only positive mood factor 'vigor-comfort' were reversed to have iTMDS increase the degree of the positive correlation with negative mood states. Results: The iTMDS decreased by 11.50% from 1.09±0.54 before SGA to 0.63±0.40 after SGA (p<0.001). The average score of the only positive factor 'vigor-comfort' increased by 10.78%, from 1.93±1.17 before SGA to 2.38±1.31 after SGA (p<0.001). On the other hand, the factor 'fatigue-inertia' of the 5 negative factors decreased most significantly in its average score by 16.73%, from 1.19±1.24 before SGA to 0.40±0.58 after SGA (p<0.001). The remaining 4 negative factors (depressed state, anxiety-fear, anger-hostility, and uncertainty-helplessness) decreased by within the range of 7.75% to 11.33% (p<0.001). Conclusions: Changes in K-POMS scores observed in this study indicate that the SGA program improves significantly mood. Since a mood state is closely related to stress and immunity, SGA is expected to have effects on stress relief and immunity enhancement (p<0.001). Continued studies are suggested to further validate the present results and to enhance the clinical utility, which include physiological signal measurements and clinical pathological examinations to test the effetcs of SGA on stress management and immunity enhancement.