ABSTRACT
By historical review on integrative research of syndrome differentiation and disease differentiation and considering the scientific research method of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the syndrome is the key subject of clinical study on TCM. During the recent 10 years or more, many new diseases and diagnostic approaches have been found and developed in Western medicine, while in TCM, the advances in research on syndrome can not keep up with the requirements of clinical practice. This problem was caused by three matters as follows: (1) Syndrome differentiation and its classification have been conservative and lack of new discovery; (2) The thinking pattern of clinical practice has been focused on disease differentiation, and only complemented by syndrome differentiation; (3) The treatment has been concentrated on the disease instead of on the syndrome. Considering these problems, the author has put forward the thinking pattern of clinical research, that is "to differentiate diseases from syndromes and to differentiate syndromes from diseases". In this way, many new syndromes and diseases will be discovered with the improvement of disease and syndrome differentiations. These advances will provide rich resources for basic theoretical and pharmacal studies of TCM, and improve the common understanding of TCM in the world.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To study the influence of Jieyu Huoxue Decoction on rehabilitation of patients with depression after cerebral infarction. METHODS: Fifty four patients suffered from the depression after acute cerebral infarction were randomly divided into three groups: depression control group, fluoxetine treated group and Jieyu Huoxue Decoction treated group. Eighteen patients of cerebral infarction without depression were enrolled in the no depression control group randomly. The Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS), the modified Edinburgh-Scandinavia stroke scale (MESSS) and the activities of daily living (ADL) were evaluated before treatment, 30 and 60 days after treatment. RESULTS: After 30 and 60 days of treatment, SDS evaluation of the Jieyu Huoxue Decoction treated group showed significant difference as compared with the condition before treatment and that of the depression control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), MESSS evaluation and ADL evaluation also showed significant difference as compared with the condition before treatment and that of the depression control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01); there was no obvious difference between the fluoxetine treated group and the Jieyu Huoxue Decoction treated group, but the Jieyu Huoxue Decoction treated group showed fewer symptoms and less side effect. CONCLUSION: Jieyu Huoxue Decoction can not only relieve depression after cerebral infarction, but also improve neurological functions.
ABSTRACT
Purpose To observe and compare the curative effects of combined acupuncture and medicine with simple herbal medicine on treatment of depression. Method Altogether 63 cases were enrolled according to the determination of internationally accepted self-evaluation depression scales (SDS), among them 33 cases were treated with combination of acupuncture and herbal medicine (acupuncture-medicine group) and the other 30 cases were in treated with herbal medicine alone (herbal medicine group) Results The total effective rate of acupuncture-medicine group was 90.9% and that of herbal group was 80.0%. And there was significant statistics difference between the curative effects of two groups (P <0.05) without obvious adverse reaction. Conclusion Combination of acupuncture and medicine has better effect in treating depression than herbal medicine group.