Understanding Of Medicine Research Articles

An exploratory study of cervical disc degeneration model and mechanism of acupuncture therapy in rabbits

Acupuncture is an important therapy method in traditional Chinese medicine for treating intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD), offering a wide range of applications. It is based on the theory of Chinese veterinary medicine and combines the stage of the disease course and individual differences for syndrome differentiation and treatment. However, there are few studies on the acupuncture treatment of cervical disc degeneration (CDD) in rabbits. Treatment based on syndrome differentiation is the basic principle of Chinese veterinary treatment. The selection of acupoints for external treatment should be based on individual etiology and pathogenesis. Nevertheless, most current studies do not follow this guideline. In this study, we established the CDD model and explored the mechanism of acupuncture treatment in alleviating CDD in rabbits by selecting a group of main acupoints including cervical Jiaji, Fengchi, Tianzhu, Naohu, Dazhui, and Houxi acupoints, combined with Western medicine's understanding of the pathogenesis of cervical spondylosis, from the anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and tissue-repairing perspectives. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the successful establishment of the rabbit CDD model. Acupuncture stimulation reduced the increase of average and maximum neck temperature due to CDD in rabbits. The acupuncture treatment relieved the spinal disc damage in the neck of the rabbit, which also decreased the expression level of pro-apoptotic factor Bax and increased the expression level of anti-apoptotic factor Bcl-2. In addition, it can alleviate the abnormal apoptosis of rabbit intervertebral disc, decrease the expression level of inflammatory factors such as TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-2, and PGE2α, and alleviate the intense inflammation and pain response caused by CDD in rabbits. In conclusion, Acupuncture treatment can slow down the CDD of rabbits by regulating the inflammatory response and abnormal apoptosis of intervertebral disc tissue.

Professor Xiaoping Liu 's experience in treating adenoid hypertrophy in children

[Abstract]: Adenoidal hypertrophy is a common clinical disease in children, and repeated episodes have serious effects on children's learning and life. This article introduces Professor Liu Xiaoping's experience of treatment and pathogenesis analysis of adenoid hypertrophy in children, according to the understanding of Chinese medicine physicians to this disease, which offers new idea and methods to the treatment of adenoidal hypertrophy in children.Ancient Chinese medicine's understanding of the disease, Treatment of adenoidal hypertrophy provides new ideas and methods.

A systematic review of western medicine's understanding of pain experience, expression, assessment, and management for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Although pain is a near-universal experience, pain expression and beliefs are highly variable and can affect assessment and management of pain. This systematic review seeks to synthesize the research findings regarding pain management for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples addressing variation as voiced by patients, clinicians, and researchers alike. A systematic review was performed across 7 research databases for all articles related to pain within Indigenous Australian peoples. Additional literature was identified by hand-searching reference lists. Articles were restricted to literature which addressed pain within Indigenous Australians as the primary focus of the article. Thematic analysis was performed to group articles according to those which focussed on the experience, expression, assessment, or management of pain. A total of 294 articles were identified on initial search of literature, of which 20 met inclusion criteria for this study. This review captured gross heterogeneity in cohorts, research methodologies, and conditions studied, making generalized assumptions impossible and inappropriate. Studies suggest that the beliefs of both patients and practitioners are important considerations in approaching effective assessment and management of pain. Health practitioners should appreciate how our own beliefs influence the management of patients and must ensure community consultation is undertaken in order to improve pain assessment and management.

Using Newborn Sequencing to Advance Understanding of the Natural History of Disease

A significant portion of newborns cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit or other ICUs, such as the cardiac ICU, have a medical condition with a genetic component, including congenital malformations, the leading cause of death in the NICU. In many cases, however, it is not clear which condition the child has or what can be done to help him or her. Genomic sequencing of sick newborns has the potential to bypass the prolonged journey to a diagnosis, improving the medical care of individual infants. Sequencing also has the potential to benefit others beyond the child whose genome is sequenced and his or her immediate family. Sequence data from sick newborns will expand medicine's understanding of genetic diseases, leading to improvements in clinicians' ability to counsel family and to provide even more targeted care. Not only will more frequent use of sequencing lead to discovery of new genes; it will also provideunique insights into the full spectrum of known Mendelian genetic diseases, so-called phenotypic expansion, when a gene previously recognized as associated with a phenotype is found to be associated with an expanded set of clinical features. Genetic and environmental changes that modify the expression of a genetic disease may also be elucidated.

The understangding and outlook of acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine

Background Acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome(ALI/ARDS) is a fatal disease, being caused by several factors, and the pathogenesis is quite complicated. Objective To compare the related reaserches of traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine on ALI/ARDS. Content Both Chinese and Western medicine's understanding of the pathological interpretation, diagnosis, mechanism and treatment of the parallel comparisons, highlighting both similarities and differences. though seem incompatible, The two medical systems, can be complementary. Trend This review will provide a theoretical guidance of the combined treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine on ALI/ARDS. Key words: Acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome; Western medicine; Traditional Chinese medicine; Understanding

한의학 출산생리(出産生理)의 기경팔맥론(奇經八脈論) 적용에 대한 고찰

Subject : The application of eight extra Meridians theory to birth physiology of Korean Medicine. Objective : This study suggests physiological theories in child birth in Korean Medicine. Method : First, the application of eight extra Meridians and extraordinary organs theories to physiology, pathology, pregnancy, postnatal period of women were examined based on major publications and theories of some historical characters. This work provided clues for application of eight extra Meridians theory to birth physiology. Second, the progressing birth physiology of modern medicine based on the importance of the brain function was examined, with which the application of eight extra Meridians and extraordinary organs theories to the birth process showed close relationship. Conclusion : The following conclusions could be drawn. In traditional publications of Korean Medicine, the contents explaining birth physiology with eight extra Meridians theory were scarce, mainly due to the doctor's perception of birth as part of the natural female physiology along with menstruation and pregnancy. However, the contents explaining menstruation, pregnancy, postnatal physiology and pathology through eight extra Meridians theory could be found in classical texts such as Neijing, Jebyeong-wonhuron, Imjeunginameuian. Therefore, it is reasonable to apply the eight extra Meridians theory to the birth process as well. Modern medicine's understanding that pituitary and hypothalamus hormones are in play on womb in the birth process, such as Oxytocin, is in continuous progress. Moreover, the environmental condition that has been traditionally known ideal to the birth process in both the East and West-dark, warm, quiet and secluded-is being confirmed in modern research. The application of eight extra Meridians theory to birth physiology can help to explain these modern information, and thus make them more acceptable.

Western Medicine and Auriculotherapy: a comparative analysis of two paradigmatic approaches to the external ear

The external ear is an often overlooked structure that serves several important functions in humans and in other species. Western Medicine conceives of the external ear in terms of its function, embryology, innervation and clinical syndromes with auricular manifestations. Non‐western traditions, however, perceive the external ear in a way that challenges the paradigm accepted in Western Medicine. The purpose of this study was to assess the different approaches to auricular morphology and function, and to see whether or not there is something to be gained, in terms of Western Medicine's understanding of anatomy and function, by looking at non‐Western traditions. A review of Western and Chinese literature was conducted. Results show that a general understanding of the external ear in Chinese Medicine is based upon a “somatotopic map” (i.e., different regions of the auricle are believed to correspond to different areas of the body). This map provides the basis by which general medical conditions can be both diagnosed and treated using the modality known as “auriculotherapy” which includes, but is not limited to, auricular acupuncture. While this model appears to be outside of accepted Western Medical dogma, auriculotherapy is in fact closely related to such familiar entities as referred otalgia, as well as well‐documented, neurally‐mediated reflexes involving the external ear.

Being John Doe Malkovich: Truth, Imagination, and Story in Medicine

In the context of evidence-based science, where all truth has become knowable though rigorous experimentation and interpretation, the ambiguity and complexity of patient stories render them too often at the margins of medical practice. Stories that are not corroborated by "scientific evidence" are "false" and their tellers deemed "bad historians." In the increasingly technical world of medicine, this logic is in danger of becoming extended to almost all patient stories. Efforts in medical education to honor stories of illness must grapple with the profession's vexed expectations of veracity in patient narratives. This essay will address the issues of truth, representation, and story in medicine with the goal of complicating medicine's understanding of patient narratives. This essay will use narrative cinema—Charlie Kaufman's unusual 1999 film Being John Malkovich—as well as the disciplines of oral history and trauma studies, to expand the frame around medicine's understanding of truth in illness stories.

Implacable images: why epileptiform events continue to be featured in film and television

ABSTRACT Epileptiform events have been portrayed in film since 1900 and on television since the 1950's. Over time, portrayals have not reflected medicine's understanding of epilepsy. At present, it is unlikely that individuals who do not have a close relationship with someone with a seizure‐disorder will witness a seizure. Because fictive and often incorrect images appear increasingly, many think of them as accurate depictions. The research addresses three questions in relation to these images: How do directors use the images? Why do uses of seizures in visual media not reflect contemporary scientific knowledge? Why have they persisted and increased in use? Data consist of material from 192 films and television episodes. The general category of seizures includes seizures in characters said to have epilepsy or some other condition, seizures related to drug or alcohol use, pseudoseizures and feigned seizures, and, a category in which, for example, someone is described as “having a fit.” The research demonstrates how epileptiform events drive the narrative, support the genre, evoke specific emotional reactions, accentuate traits of characters with seizures, highlight qualities of other characters through their responses to the seizures, act as catalysts for actions, and enhance the voyeuristic experience of the audience. Twenty video sequences are included in the manuscript. The authors conclude that the visual experience of seizures remains so enthralling that its use is most likely to increase particularly on television, and that as the public has less experience with real seizures, depictions in film will continue to be more concerned with what the image can do for the show and less interested in accurate portrayals. Ways to influence depictions are suggested. [Published with video sequences]

The anomaly, the chronic patient and the play of medical power

Abstract In the middle of the twentieth century, the anomaly, the person whose body suffered the effects of an accident and who elicited a compassionate response designed to protect the anomaly from the effects of the accident, disappeared. The ‘disabled,’ the ‘handicapped,’ and the ‘chronic patient’ replaced the anomaly in medical discourse. This change is reflected in specific, technical aspects of medicine ‐ medicine's understanding and treatment of two anomalous bodies and in general medical ideology and the organization of medical care. The change extended the medical gaze to the most intimate aspects of life and to the fine seams of society where the anomaly used to wander. We must understand this change as part of the paradoxical play of medical power. Medical power became more totalizing, integrative and rapidly responsive just as it became more unobtrusive, humane and liberating.

The anomaly, the chronic patient and the play of medical power.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the anomaly, the person whose body suffered the effects of an accident and who elicited a compassionate response designed to protect the anomaly from the effects of the accident, disappeared. The 'disabled', the 'handicapped', and the 'chronic patient' replaced the anomaly in medical discourse. This change is reflected in specific, technical aspects of medicine - medicine's understanding and treatment of two anomalous bodies - and in general medical ideology and the organization of medical care. The change extended the medical gaze to the most intimate aspects of life and to the fine seams of society where the anomaly used to wander. We must understand this change as part of the paradoxical play of medical power. Medical power became more totalizing, integrative and rapidly responsive just as it became more unobtrusive, humane and liberating.