The Evaluation of Handy Objective Indicator of Skin Moisture and Its Clinical Usefulness in Kampo Medicine / 日本東洋医学雑誌

ABSTRACT

Objects The purpose of this study is to evaluate objective measurements of skin moisture and its usefulness in the Kampo clinic.Methods: We measured the skin moisture of 6 male volunteers using a sensor twice, in a one to two week interval, and calculated the correlation of both data sets at 66 points. Secondly, we compared the skin moisture data at 10 regions in 81 patients without any skin disease, in a wide age range from 30 s to early 70 s. The ten regions measured were face, chest, back, abdomen, leg and 4 forearm points, i.e. the inside and outside of the bilateral center forearm, and palm.Results: The correlation of two successively measured data sets showed excellent relation (r=0.716, p<0.0001). The sensor measurement of skin moisture was quite reliable. Measurements of the face, chest and back showed them to be significantly wetter than the abdomen, leg or any of the 4 forearm points. Palm measurements indicated a wetter tendency than for any forearm measurements. Back and abdomen measurements in males were significantly wetter than those in females. There were no significant differences among the data sets, with regards to age. Therefore, any forearm points are clinically useful for the standard measurement of skin moisture. We also demonstrated a case in which skin moisture measurements with a sensor were useful in prescribing and observing the effects of shigyakusan.Conclusion: Utilizing this method may be helpful in acquiring much more objective measurements for Kampo medicine.