THE FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF THE CLINICAL SYMPTOMS OF TONGUE AND PULSE ACCORDING TO TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN SCIATICA PATIENTS

Abstract

Background: Sciatica is a common disease in clinical. However, the classification of symptoms and clinical forms of traditional medicine from different literature sources is not really the same. Meanwhile the strategic development of traditional medicine Western Pacific region 2011- 2020, the World Health Organization strategy proposed building regulations, standards and practices of traditional medicine based on evidence. Therefore, in this study we contribute to build standardization of diagnostic symptoms according to traditional medicine. Objective: To survey the frequency of occurrence of the tongue and pulse symptoms clinical according to traditional medicine and find outseveral factors related to the occurrence of clinical presentation in patients with Sciatica. Methods: We recruited 132 patients has been diagnosed with sciatica based on western medicine at the Traditional Medicine department of Hue Central Hospital and Thua Thien Hue Traditional Medicine Hospital. Research methodology is descriptive cross-sectional. Results: 1. The symptoms of the tongue: About the tongue body color: 18.2% pale; 4.5% red and 1.5% bluish purple. About the tongue shape: 8.4% thin tongue; 37.2% enlarged tongue and 12.9% fissured tongue. About the tongue fur: 77.3% white fur, 22.7% yellow fur; 32.6% moist fur; 25.0% dry fur; 36.4% wet fur; 6.1% sticky slimy fur; 52.3% thin fur, 43.9% thick fur and 3.8% exfoliated fur. 2. The symptoms of the pulse: 23.5% floating pulse;67.4% sunken pulse; 30.3% slow pulse, 50.0% moderate pulse and 19.7% rapid pulse. Conclusion: Symptoms have high rate such as white fur, thin fur, sunken pulse, slow pulse. Symptoms have low rate such as bluish purple, red tongue, exfoliated fur. There were significant relationships between clinical symtoms and age, sex, disease duration and pulse frequency (p <0.05). Key words: frequency, symptoms of tongue, symptoms of palse, sciatica, traditional medicine