다운증후군 (Down's syndrome)의 한의학적(韓醫學的) 치료(治療)에 관한 고찰(考察) - 중의학(中醫學) 저널을 중심(中心)으로 -

Abstract

Objectives: Literature Study of clinical cases with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as reference for Korean medicine based treatment of juvenile patients with syndrome. Methods: 4 TCM journals with the highest impact factors were searched and selected among the journals listed in www.cnki.net. The search keywords were 蒙古症, 唐氏症(産生唐氏症), 唐氏症候群, 先天愚型, 伸舌樣痴呆, 21三体綜合徵, 三染色体症, Down`s syndrome, and Mongolism. Accordingly, searched papers were analyzed. Results: Total 6 studies were selected: RCT(5), case report(1). Among the RCT related studies, 2 studies tested the effect of Electroacupuncture (電鍼), 1 study tested the effect of Electroacupuncture and Pharmacopuncture (藥鍼) treatment together, and 2 studies tested the effect of Electroacupuncture and Herbal Medicines (藥物) co-treatment. In all the studies, the study groups showed significantly improved intelligence quotient (IQ) in comparison with the control groups. The case report showed improvement of cognitive ability and other clinical parameters as a result of Acupuncture (鍼) and Herbal Medicines co-treatment in juvenile patients with syndrome. Conclusions: Clinical studies testing the effect of TCM for the treatment of syndrome have been conducted in small scales, and all the studies showed a certain level of brain function improvement of the patients in the study groups. These results implicate that the methods in Korean medicine can be highly potential treatment options for the treatment of syndrome. Conduction of accurate and well-controlled studies in large scale would be required to prove the effect of Korean medicine for the treatment of patients with syndrome.