• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.893-902
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• 2016

Objective: To describe the effects of traditional Korean medicine on dizziness and gait disturbance arising after removal of a vestibular schwannoma. Methods: The patient was treated using Korean medical treatments, such as herbal medicines (Jaeumkunbi-tang-gagambang and Yookmijihwang-Insamyangyoung-tang-gagambang), acupuncture, and moxibustion. We measured the state and progress of this case with the Korean Vestibular Disorder Activities of Daily Living Scale (K-VADL), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), and a visual analogue scale (VAS). Results: After treatment, the K-VADL score decreased from 167 to 74 and the VAS score decreased from 10 to 5.7, while the BBS score increased from 3 to 42. Conclusion: Jaeumkunbi-tang-gagambang (滋陰健脾湯) and Yookmijihwang-Insamyangyoung-tang-gagambang(六味地黃湯 合 人蔘養榮湯 加減方) appear to be effective for controlling dizziness and gait disturbances occurring after removal of vestibular schwannomas.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.67-78
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• 2023

Objectives To evaluate the evidence supporting the efficacy and safety of electroacupuncture for lumbar spinal stenosis. Methods We searched eight electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Chinese Academic Journals, Research Information Sharing Service, ScienceOn, KMBASE, DBpia) and related two journals up to March 2023. We included randomized controlled trials of testing electroacupuncture for lumbar spinal stenosis patients. The methodological quality of relevant randomized controlled trials assessed by the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results Among 90 articles that were searched, seven randomized controlled trials involving 474 participants were finally selected in this systematic review. Electroacupuncture was more effective on lumbar spinal stenosis compared with other treatments including analgesics, acupuncture, bed rest and exercise therapy, but showed ambiguous effect compared with physical therapy. Most of the side effects and adverse reactions were reported as minor and temporary. Conclusions Electroacupuncture for lumbar spinal stenosis was more effective than analgesics, acupuncture, bed rest and exercise therapy. In terms of safety, it was limited because there are many papers that do not mention side effects and adverse reactions related to electroacupuncture. Additional studies are needed to determine the effect of electroacupuncture on lumbar spinal stenosis.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.246-252
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• 1997

This study was performed to evaluate antiulcer effects of traditional folk medicines such as heat-treated acumen, halloysitum rubrum and os sepiae against stomach ulcer induced by acetic acid in Sprague-Dawley rats. Various pharmacological parameters were utilized to compare the antiulcer effects of aforementioned drugs based on the size of ulcer lesion, pepsin activity, free and total acidity, gastric secretory volume, and 5-HT (hydxoytrytamine) content. All folk medicines and ranitidine as control drus were shown to decrease ulcer lesion size after 5-day treatments, with the order of halloysitum rubrum, os sepiae, heat-treated acumen and ranitidine. All treated drugs except os sepiae inhibited the gastric volume as compared with that in the control group. Ranitidine most significantly inhibited the gastric volume. All the experimented drugs in this study lowered the gastric acidity. Halloysitum rubrum decreased it most remarkably, followed by ranitidine, os sepiae and heat-treated alumen after 5-day treatments. All used drugs alleviated the pepsin activity as compared with the control group, os sepiae being the highest then halloysitum rubrum, heat-treated alumen and ranitidine in turn. Heat-treated alumen and halloysitum rubrum showed mucin production to the great extent, and ranitidine had slight increasing effect thereon. At the end of observation period, all drugs except ranitidine increased 5-HT contents as compared to the normal group. From the above results, we could confirm the folk medicines such as heat-treated alumen, halloysitum rubrum and os sepiae have not only remarkable antiulcer effects but also preventing effects for the stomach ulcer recurrence, which suggest the experimented folk medicines could be developed as new antiulcer agents.

• Journal of Korean Traditional Oncology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.37-48
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• 2022

Objective: Insomnia is a very common symptom and has a great effect on the quality of life in cancer patients. This study was conducted to identify the effects of the aroma therapy on insomnia in cancer patients. Methods: The study was performed with one group in before-after test design. The subjects were 15 cancer patients with insomnia selected by convenience sampling in Daegu. The aroma therapy consists of 10-minute sessions twice a week over 6 weeks. The PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), ISI (Insomnia Severity Index) were measured at baseline and at 3 and 6 weeks, after 6 weeks after finishing treatment. STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), FACT-G (Functional Assessment Cancer Therapy-General), HRV (Heart Rate Variability) were measured at baseline, post-treatment and after 6 weeks after finishing treatments. Results: Fifteen patients (mean age 50.93 ± 7.29 years), with breast, ovarian or gastric cancer, participated this study. At post-treatment, PSQI (from 14.18 ± 2.64 to 6.18 ± 3.03), ISI (from 19.00 ± 3.19 to 8.18 ± 5.14), FACT-G (from 55.65 ± 11.20 to 66.91 ± 12.33), and STAI (from 40.36 ± 8.10 to 34.73 ± 9.81, from 45.64 ± 6.07 to 39.73 ± 9.37) scores improved significantly over baseline(p<0.001). Conclusion: Aroma therapy improved insomnia, anxiety and quality of life on cancer patients.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.61-74
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aimed to analyse: 1) the clinical effectiveness and safety of traditional Korean Medicine (TKM) and frequency of TKM therapies used and their relationship with conventional treatments. Methods: This prospective observational study enrolled children with cerebral palsy (CP) aged 6-78 months (n=126). The children who used herbal medication for >30 days or acupuncture treatment >12 sessions within 6 months were defined as the integrated rehabilitation (IR) group; the remaining participants were included in the conventional rehabilitation (CR) group. Results: Changes in the Gross Motor Function Measure-66 (GMFM-66) were greater in the IR group (6.4±6.1) than in the CR group (4.6±5.8). The reduction in the number of other health problems was greater in the IR group than in the CR group. The GMFM-66 improvement was greatest in gross motor function classification system level 1. There was no between-group difference in the frequency of rehabilitation therapy (10.9±6.6 and 12.0±9.9 in the IR and CR groups, respectively). Conclusion: TKM may offer additional benefits in terms of the GMFM-66 score and other health problems. However, there is a need for further randomized controlled trials involving a restricted CP type and a controlled treatment type and intensity to confirm these findings.

• Journal of Korean Traditional Oncology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2009

Advanced gastric cancer is the most common type of all cancers in Korea, which account for approximately 18.1% of all incident cancers, and mortality from advanced gastric cancer is estimated at nearly 15.6% of death that caused by all cancer. In the conventional medicine, treatments of advanced gastric cancer include chemotherapy such like FOLFOX. In this case report, we introduce a case of advanced gastric cancer with greater omentum, thyroid, supraclavicular lymph node metastasis who had received chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was stopped because of weight loss and neurologic symptom such like cognitive disorder. The patient visited $M{\cdot\mu}$ Integrative cancer center in 2008, and was treated by Sojeukjungwon-san and allergen removed Rhus verniciflua stokes(aRVS). There was no evidence of brain metastasis. The patient showed improvement of cognitive disorder and gained weight. Further case study will be needed in order to determine the effects of Sojeukjungwon-san and allergen removed Rhus verniciflua stokes(aRVS) for the quality of life of advanced gastric cancer patients after chemotherapy.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.51-59
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• 2013

Objectives : This study was designed to evaluate clinical evidence of acupuncture treatment for peripheral facial palsy in South Korea. Methods : All process was independently proceeded by two investigators. Literature search was performed in 9 databases from their inception to February 2013. Searched reports was twice excluded for title, abstract and body. And then, data extract and analysis was done before assessing risk of bias by Cochrane Handbook. Results : 10 randomized controlled trials(RCT) were finally included. 4 RCT handled postauricular pain with facial palsy. All articles at least used in combination with two treatments. Interventions like pharmacopuncture, electroacupuncture, scalp acupuncture etcetera were conducted as treatment to evaluate efficacy, and some study reported advantageous effects of treatment group compared to baseline or control group. Adverse events didn't referd to in any studies. In assessing risk of bias, indefinite and uncertain information made all included trials to have a high risk of bias. Conclusions : Because of methodological deficit, there is no sufficient evidence to allow any conclusion about the efficacy of acupuncture for peripheral facial palsy. Therefore, well designed trials with high quality is needed from now on.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.107-118
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• 2009

Objectives : This study was performed to investigate physiology, pathology and clinical applications for cosmetology in Traditional Chinese Medicine. We hope most clinicians practicing cosmetic acupuncture to understand theoretical background well and to treat cosmetic diseases more diversely by this paper. Methods : We collected useful informations from 35 papers in Chinese at website www.cnki.net about TCM treatments including acupuncture, moxibustion and herbal medicine. And we could see important factors connected with physiology, pathology and clinical applications within this field. Conclusions : Liver, lung, stomach, mental disorders and yin-deficiency constitution were connected each other in cosmetic physiology. Blood stasis and congestion were thought highly in cosmetic pathology. In clinical applications, wet cupping therapy on the acupoints located in the back line of Governor Vessel(GV), ear-acupuncture, acupuncture using local facial acupoints, pharmacopuncture, moxibustion were used diversely for each case with cosmetic disorders. Especially, local acupoints and remote acupoints were selected at the same time for wrinkle care. And studies on plastic surgery sequelae, dark skin, acne and melasma were more published than those on wrinkle care.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Oriental Medical Informatics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.64-77
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• 2012

Donguibogam, Korea's cultural heritage and traditional Oriental medicine book listed in the World Heritage three years ago, is indeed great in its importance and value. Korea's posterity has sought treatment methods through the medical book and their researches on that book have continued. However, it is rare to make the concrete analysis on the medicines for prescriptions recorded in the book. In this study, we reviewed "Ears" in the Section "Bodily Appearance" among the five chapters of Donguibogam, and analyzed the 55 types of prescriptions for ear diseases, the medical characteristics, tastes, prime classification of medical herbs, and acupunctural effects, and the dosage forms depending on prescriptions. For insect-entering ear diseases and 20 kinds of a single-medicine prescription also, the treatments are presented in the book, but we presented the texts only and excluded them in the analysis. We also excluded overlapping prescriptions and adding and reducing prescriptions of the 55 prescriptions, and thus classified the left 42 proscriptions by dosage form. As a result: 1. With respect to medical characteristics, the medicine with warm characteristics reached 9 types(40.9%), the highest rate, followed by the medicine with cold characteristics 8 types (36.4%). 2. Concerning medical tastes, the medicine with bitter taste included 12 types (54.5%), the medicine with sour taste 10 types (45.5%), and the medicine with sweet taste 7 types (31.8%). It was unusual that of the 22 medicines used for multipurpose, no medicine with the taste was found. 3. For the acupunctural effects, the medicine with acupuncture effects for spleen medirian reached 12 types in total (54.5%). On the contrary, the medicine with the effects for pericardium meridian reached only one (4.5%) among the total of 22 medicines. 4. In the dosage form of 42 prescriptions, powder medicine was 15 types (35.7%), and decoction medicine was 14 (33.3%). Powder, dedoction, and pill medicines accounted for 90.4% of the total medicine type. It was found that in particular, for ear diseases powder medicine was used more frequently than decoction medicine.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2019

Backgrounds : The market of Complementary Alternative Medicine(CAM) in the United State(U.S.) accounts for a large proportion of the global CAM market and has a high growth rate. The recent introduction of Obama Care has brought the change in the health insurance system for CAM, and we need to analyze it for its implication to Korean system. Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of acupuncture and chiropractic health insurance in the U.S., and to draw implications for expanding the health insurance coverage for Korean traditional medicine through the comparison between the U.S. and Korean health insurance systems. Methods : We examined the data through the literature search and from the websites of both U.S. government departments and related organizations for the health insurance policy. Based on the collected data, we analyzed its CAM health insurance system in Korea. Results : The acupuncture covered by public health insurance in the U.S. has a limit in the number of treatments and a range of applied diseases compared with Korea. In addition, the practice of acupuncture is not subdivided. However, the chiropractic in the U.S. which also has a limited number of coverage and only three categories of practices are similar to that of Korea. Conclusions : Although the use of CAM by public health insurance is not active in the U.S., but the organizations such as Veterans Health Administration in Vermont is already discussing the use of acupuncture to solve the problem of opioid overuse. Thus Korea also needs to discuss to promote the expansion of the insurance system for CAM.