• 대한한방내과학회지
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• 제42권5호
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• pp.833-845
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• 2021

Parkinson's syndrome is a degenerative brain disease that presents characteristic motor symptoms of tremor, rigidity, and gait disturbance. In addition to these motor symptoms, Parkinson's syndrome also presents non-motor symptoms (NMSs) such as sleep disturbance and cognitive decline. NMSs reduce patient's quality of life and psychosocial functioning and cause economic burden on the patient, so appropriate evaluation and treatment are required. Lewy body dementia is one of the several diseases belonging to Parkinson's syndrome. Its symptoms such as cognitive function, memory impairment, and hallucinations occur with Parkinsonism. Although drug therapy is being used with drug treatment to treat non-motor symptoms, it has limitations such as side effects, which stimulated interest in other complementary treatment methods such as oriental medicine treatment, dance, and yoga. The patient in this case complained of tremor in the right upper extremity, muscle hypertension and pain, and persistent vision, memory, and cognitive decline. The patient was diagnosed with probable Lewy body dementia. The patient was hospitalized for 4 months and received acupuncture and herbal medicines. After treatment, the patient's NMS scale scores decreased from 90 to 63, and the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores (summed I, II, and III) decreased from 17 points to 8 points. The Beck Depression Inventory score decreased from 22 points to 13 points. In addition, the patient's subjective evaluation revealed improvement. In this case, a patient diagnosed with probable Lewy body dementia who did not respond to the standard treatment and did not want to take medications showed improvement in not only motor symptoms but also NMSs after integrative Korean medicine treatment.

• 한방재활의학과학회지
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.195-201
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• 2020

Spinal epidural lipomatosis is a rare disorder characterized by overgrowth of fat in the extradural space, causing spinal stenosis with compression of the neural elements. This study reports on the effectiveness of Korean medicine treatment on a patient who was diagnosed on lumbar stenosis with lipomatosis. The patient was treated with Korean traditional medicine including pharmacopucture, acupuncture, Chuna manual treatment, and Korean herbal medicine, cupping. Numerical rating scale (NRS), Oswestry disability index (ODI), Euroqol five dimension (EQ-5D) index, lumbar range of motion were used as objective tools for evaluating the patient's progress. Back NRS decreased from 6 to 3. In the case of lower limbl radiation NRS, 5 was reduced to 3 upon discharge. EQ-5D index also increased from 0.751 to 0.766. For ODI, the score dropped from 26.67 to 24.44 on hospitalization. As a result, clinical improvements were found in a patient. In conclusion, this study shows that Korean medicine treatment can be considered as effective conservative care for spinal stenosis with lipomatosis.

• 한국전통의학지
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.113-127
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• 2006

Objectives: This study was produced to examine the effects of moxibustion that had been played important role to traditional oriental medical treatment on disease. Recently, it was reported that moxi-tar which is generated in the process of moxibustion as burning combustibles decreased nitric oxide(NO) and inducible NO synthase (iNOS) generation in cellular experiments. Methods: Carrageenan-induced arthritis rat model was used to test the effect of moxi-tar as a chronic pain model. Diluted moxi-tar was single injected in several acupoints or combined with electroacupuncture (l ms, 2 Hz, and 2 mA) into contralateral ST36 acupoint for 30 min to assess the synergic effects. After the treatment, behavioral tests measuring stepping force were periodically conducted during the next 12 hours. Endogenous NO and iNOS, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and c-Fos protein expression in the spinal cord were examined on a rat model of carrageenan-induced arthritis. Results : After the induction of arthritis, rats subsequently showed a reduced stepping force of the affected limb for at least the next 4 days. The reduced stepping force of the limb was presumably due to a painful knee, since oral injection of indomethacin produced temporary improvement of weight bearing. Maxi-tar produced significant improvement of stepping force of the hindlimb affected by the arthritis lasting at least 9 hours. The magnitude of this improvement was equivalent to that obtained after an oral injection of 3 mg/kg of indomethacin and this improvement of stepping force was interpreted as an analgesic effect. Maxi-tar produced the improvement of stepping force of the affected hindlimb in a dose-dependent manner. Both NO production and iNOS, COX-2 protein expression increased by arthritis were suppressed by maxi-tar. Moxi-tar on combination with electroacupuncture (EA) produced more powerful and longer lasting improvement of stepping force of the hindlimb affected by the arthritis than either moxi-tar or EA did. Conclusion : The present study suggest that maxi-tar produces a potent analgesic effect on the chronic knee arthritis pain model in the rat and that moxi-tar-induced analgesia modulate endogenous NO through the suppression of iNOS/COX-2 protein expression.

• 대한한방소아과학회지
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.25-42
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• 2017

Objectives The goal of this review was to investigate clinical, experimental and literature studies of Korean medicine on atopic dermatitis (AD) of Korean children in Korean medicine literature, seeking for the better research methods for more effective treatments. Methods Electronic investigations were practiced on AKOP (The Association of Korean Oriental Pediatrics, http://www.akop.or.kr) to collect theses which were published by J Pediatr Korean Med. The key word 'Atopy' was used for searching to ensure that every related thesis was collected. The publication date was limited from 1996 to 2016. The selected literatures were assessed mainly according to distributions of study type, publication year, scale, treatment and its efficacy. Results 55 papers were selected from 59 studies. In these collected 55 related theses, there were 29 experimental studies (52.73%), 18 clinical studies (32.73%), 8 review studies (14.55%). In the 29 experimental studies, there were 20 studies (68.97%) using NC/Nga mouse as subjects. The mite antigen was used to trigger AD by 8 studies (27.59%). The studies have been utilizing DNCB and DNFB instead of mite antigen since 2011. All the experimental studies showed that the Korean medicine was effective in AD. In total 18 clinical studies, 3 studies (16.67%) were case reports, only 1 thesis (5.56%) was conducted by case control study and the rest were case series studies. 7 studies (38.89%) of 18 studies diagnosed AD according to Hanifin and Rajka's diagnostic criteria (1980), only 1 study (5.56%) according to the Korean standard and the rest 10 studies (55.56%) didn't mention diagnostic criteria. 12 clinical studies (66.67%) showed efficacy in treating AD. There were 10 studies (55.56%) only employing internal treatments and 1 thesis (5.56%) didn't mention the exact prescription. Naesowhajungtang-kamibang, Saenghyeoryunbue-um were used 3 times (16.67%) as the internal medicine respectively. 5 theses (27.78%) were combined with acupuncture therapy. Hegu (LI4), Sanyinjiao (SP6) were used in 4 theses, and Taichong (LR3), Quchi (LI11), Zusanli (ST36) in 3 theses. The number of acupoints chosen from The Spleen meridian of Foot-Taiyin was the largest. There were 8 review theses. 2 were about the foreign oriental medicine, 3 were about the external medicine or external treatment methods, and 3 other studies were about severity scoring systems, the methodological study in the latest clinical study, overview for pattern and results of herbal medicine-derived AD clinical researches. Conclusions The experimental studies and clinical studies showed the effectiveness of Korean medicine treatments. However, this study still needs improving by conducting more comparative studies and using better research methods, in order to find more effective treatments to improve clinical efficacy.