• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.170-176
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• 2013

Lymphedema is a phenomenon in which fluid is accumulated inside tissues due to the damaged lymphatic systems. Lymphedema can cause complications such as lymphangitis, infection, changes in skin texture, fibrosis, and lymphangiosarcoma. In this study, a lymphedema screening system based on the elasticity of the skin is proposed to easily quantify lymphedema. The developed probe consists of touch sensors, a load cell and hall-effect sensors to measure the indentation force on the skin and the return time of the skin. The developed system can be used to estimate the change in the elasticity of the skin to quantify lymphedema. The system was tested with a thyroid phantom and gelatin phantoms of different concentrations and the resulting force and the time were recorded. It was found that the increase in the elasticity leads to a higher indentation force and shorter return time. This shows that the developed system can monitor the change in the skin elasticity by measuring the return time and the indentation force. The feasibility of the system in clinical applications will be evaluated in the future study.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.15-24
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• 2021

Objectives Purpose of our study is to investigate the preventive and therapeutic effect of Chuna manual therapy (CMT) for lymphedema. Methods A study search of 10 databases was performed. We included the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which performed CMT for lymphedema in this study. The keywords used were 'chuna' or 'tuina' and 'lymphedema'. Two independent authors rated study quality and risk of bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results 9 appropriate RCTs were remained after screening. The therapeutic effects of the experimental group was statistically higher than that of the control group with functional exercise or taking western medicine. Subjective symptom score was also lower in the CMT group. Conclusions These results suggests that CMT has sufficient evidence that it is more effective in prevent or alleviating symptoms of lymphedema than conventional treating methods. However, due to the high risk of bias of included studies, further researches are needed with higher quality of evidence.