Acupancture and moxibustion therapy for sports trouble / 全日本鍼灸学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

The number of hospital files for patients who have visited the therapeutic clinic of the Juridical Foundation and Educational Promotion Foundation for Oriental Medical Science Techniques during the period between 1979, when the institute was established, and March 1988 has exceeded 3, 000, among which the proportion of patients with athletic disorders-has been increasing annually. The percentage of hospital files for patients with a chief complaint of athletic disorder among those numbered 1 through 2, 000 was very low, 6.0%, but subsequently increased rapidly to 9.1% among the 1, 000 files numbered 2, 000 through 3, 000. Of these patients, only a few have occupations related to the athletic field, or are so-called top athletes, and most are “weekend athletes” or students. Therefore, they play various types of sports, leading to the occurrence of disorders at various sites of the body. The incidence of traumatic injury is low, whereas the incidence of conditions due to fatigue-related changes is high. These characteristics of injury seem to represent the usual pattern from the viewpoint of the age structure of our patients. In the present report we describe our acupuncture and moxibustion treatment for disorders of the shoulder and elbow, among the various types of motility disturbance treated in general institutes providing acupuncture and moxa therapy, not merely as a palliative, but also a prophylactic approach. We also present the results of basic studies, which have provided evidence of therapeutic effects of our treatment, together with details of the therapeutic procedures employed.