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Weiqi, defensive qi (qi defensivum, weiqi) is deployed throughout the external surfaces (extima, biao) and flows through the channels. This defensive qi (qi defensivum, weiqi) protects the body from external heteropathies (xie). It also regulates body temperature, sweating, circadian rhythm and sensory perceptions. In the system of six main channels in the Treatise on Cold Damage (Shanghan lun) a disorder of the major yang (yang maior, taiyang) is regarded as an illness of the defensive qi (qi defensivum, weiqi). In the four-levels model of Warm Diseases (morbi temperati, wenbing) a disturbance of this defensive layer (qi defensivum, weiqi) is related to the early stage of fever caused by warm pathogens (calor heteropathies, rexie) as, for example, in the case of influenza, pneumonia, Covid-19, etc. This article cites passages from the Treatise on Cold Damage (Shanghan lun) and from the doctrine of Warm Diseases (morbi temperati, wenbing) for the treatment with Chinese phytotherapy;it also describes the corresponding acupuncture points and moxibustion treatments and how the theory of defensive qi (qi defensivum, weiqi) is to be applied in the treatment of long Covid, sleep disorders, depression and anxiety, sweating and bi-syndrome.Copyright © 2023, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.
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Background: Olfactory dysfunction (OD) is a common symptom of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is defined as the reduced or distorted ability to smell during sniffing (orthonasal olfaction) and represents one of the early symptoms in the clinical course of COVID-19 infection. A large online questionnaire-based survey has shown that some post-COVID-19 patients had no improvement 1 month after discharge from the hospital. Objective: To explore the efficacy of acupuncture for OD in COVID-19 infected patients and to determine whether acupuncture could have benefits over sham acupuncture for OD in post-COVID-19 patients. Methods: This is a single-blind, randomized controlled, cross-over trial. We plan to recruit 40 post-COVID-19 patients with smell loss or smell distortions lasting for more than 1 month. Qualified patients will be randomly allocated to the intervention group (real acupuncture) or the control group (sham acupuncture) at a 1:1 ratio. Each patient will receive 8 sessions of treatment over 4 weeks (Cycle 1) and a 2-week follow-up. After the follow-up, the control group will be subjected to real acupuncture for another 4 weeks (Cycle 2), and the real acupuncture group will undergo the 4-week sham acupuncture. The primary outcomes will be the score changes on the questionnaire of olfactory functioning and olfaction-related quality of life at week 6, 8, 12, and 14 from the baseline. The secondary outcomes will be the changes in the olfactory test score at week 6 and 12 from the baseline measured by using the Traditional Chinese version of the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT-TC). Discussion: The results of this trial will help to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture for OD in post-COVID-19 patients. This may provide a new treatment option for patients.
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Photobiomodulation (PBM) therapy is a therapeutic method that can produce a range of physiological effects in cells and tissues using certain wavelengths. The reparative benefits of PBM therapy include wound healing, bone regeneration, pain reduction, and the mitigation of inflammation. Advances in the development of laser instruments, including the use of high-intensity lasers in physiotherapy, have recently led to controllable photothermal and photomechanical treatments that enable therapeutic effects to be obtained without damaging tissue. The combination of PBM therapy with acupuncture may provide new perspectives for investigating the underlying therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture and promote its widespread application.
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Introduction: Insomnia disorder (ID) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are highly comorbid, above 80% of MDD patients have insomnia disorder. Acupuncture as a major complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapy, is utilized extensively in Asia to treat mental health disorders.Transcutaneous electrical cranial-auricular stimulation (TECAS) is a potential new type of acupuncture treatment for MDD and ID which combines the scalp points and auricular points most commonly used by acupuncturists. It has the advantages of portability, quantifiable stimulation parameters and comfort, especially for home treatment under the normal situation of COVID-19, which can avoid the risk of infection due to frequent hospital trips. Materials / Methods: 10 ID-MDD patients were treated by TECAS which was administered at the bilateral auricular acupoints, Bai Hui (GV-20) and Yin Tang (GV-29) (waveform:4/20 Hz, wave width: 0.2ms+/-30%) for twice a day last 8 weeks. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale(HAMD) of ID-MDD patients were evaluated before and after treatment. Result(s): HAMD-17 scores of 10 patients were lower at 4 and 8 weeks than before TECAS treatment, and the reduction was greater at 4 weeks than at 8 weeks. PSQI scores of 8 patients decreased at 4 and 8 weeks compared with before treatment, and the decrease was greater in the fourth week than in the 8th week. Insomnia of 2 patients improved at 4 weeks of treatment, but became worse in the 8th week as before treatment.7 out of 10 patients showed full insomnia response (50% reduction in PSQI) and 8 patients showed full depression response (50% reduction in HAMD-17 scores). Discussion(s): We suggest TECAS is a good therapeutic strategy to modulate the vagus nerve and trigeminal nerve propagate through electrical stimulation projected by neurons from peripheral sites to the central nervous system. Furthermore, we speculate that TECAS can make the trigeminal nerve afferent fibers and vagus nerve auricular branch carry messages from head facial stimulation to NTS, locus coeruleus, raphe nucleus, medullary reticular activating system and structure of the thalamus, and then to feel, edge, cortical and subcortical structures, so the electrical stimulation subcortical can cause direct regulation, namely the change of cortical excitability. Conclusion(s): These preliminary results in this group of CID-MDD patients are encouraging and need to be replicated in prospective sham-controlled studies with larger sample sizes. In addition, for patients with insomnia and depression, it is important to consider combining TECAS with psychotherapy to avoid the interference of acute negative emergency events. Acknowledgements: The support of National Key R&D Program of China (No.2018YFC1705800) and Key Laboratory of Acupuncture and Chronobiology of Sichuan Province(No.2021004) for this project is gratefully acknowledged. Learning Objectives: 1. To provide a new non-drug method for acupuncture treatment of insomnia and depression;2. Provide preliminary experimental results for the large-sample experimental design of TECAS for the treatment of insomnia and depression;3. Compared with previous studies on insomnia and depression, the regularity and characteristics of TECAS in treating insomnia and depression were found. Keywords: Transcutaneous Electrical Cranial-Auricular Stimulation (TECAS), insomnia disorder, a case series, acupuncture, Major Depressive Disorder Copyright © 2022
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Background: Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia is an expected side effect during cancer therapy. Prolonged neutropenia can lead to treatment delays and chemotherapy dose reduction. Patients with neutropenia are at increased risk for life-threatening infections, and when febrile they require hospitalization and broad-spectrum IV antibiotics. Acupuncture and related techniques have received increased interest in several clinical trials in adult oncology, where their use has resulted in improved blood cell counts. Little is known regarding the impact of needleless acupressure intervention in pediatric oncology patients. Objectives: The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the effects of daily treatment using predetermined acupressure points on hospitalized pediatric oncology patients with febrile neutropenia. Our primary objective was to determine if this protocol decreased the time to blood cell count recovery, a requirement for hospital discharge. The metric used for count recovery was absolute phagocyte count (APC), which is ANC (absolute neutrophil count) + AMC (absolute monocyte count). The endpoint for count recovery was APC ≥ 500/μL. Design/Method: In this pilot study, pediatric oncology patients admitted to the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital who had febrile neutropenia (ANC < 500/μL and temperature > 100.3F) were offered enrollment. Enrolled subjects received daily acupressure treatments until APC recovery. Cases were disease-matched to historical controls by treatment protocol as closely as possible. Time variables, including time to APC recovery and length of stay (LOS), were analyzed using the non-parametric Wilcoxon rank sum test. Results: Twelve cases (enrolled October 2020-September 2021) were group-matched to thirty-four historical controls (pulled from the medical records database, January 2015-October 2019). APC recovery in days was the same in both groups, with a median of 3.0 days, p = 0.352. The LOS in days was also similar: cases 4.94 vs. controls 3.43 days, p = 0.431. No enrolled patients experienced treatment-related adverse events. One patient was removed from the study early due to contracting COVID-19 when there was a limited supply of personal protective equipment. Conclusion: Acupressure presents a unique non-pharmacologic method to potentially support count recovery. Although we were unable to demonstrate a significant impact of acupressure on APC recovery in our pediatric population, we note limited sample size. Only 12 of the goal 35 patients (per initial power analysis) were enrolled. This was due, in part, to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including necessary restrictions on elective research protocols during the study window. Further studies are needed to explore the role of acupressure in pediatric oncology.
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Objective: To summarize the rules of acupoint selection of acupoint application to prevent and treat lung diseases under the background the post-epidemic era using data-mining technology. Method: The CNKI, Wanfang database, and VIP database were searched for clinical study articles on lung diseases treated by acupoint application published in the past 5 years. Data-eligible papers were extracted to establish a database of acupoint application for lung disease using Microsoft Excel 2019, with the goal of analyzing the frequency of acupoints, acupoint-meridian association, acupoint-location association, specific acupoint frequency, and cluster analysis. Association rules, consisting of acupoints with an application frequency of ≥ 10, were devised by the Apriori algorithm to explore the correlation between acupoint groups and to analyze the rules of the compatibility of acupoint prescriptions. Results: A total of 229 eligible papers met our inclusion criteria. Forty-seven acupoints were applied, for a total frequency of acupoints of 1,035 times. Among these, acupoints for lung diseases were primarily distributed in the back-and-waist and chest-and-abdomen areas. From the analysis of the association rules, we obtained four groups of acupoint association rules based on acupoint clusters with a frequency ≥ 10 and found that Feishu (BL 13), Tiantu (CV 22), Dazhui (GV 14), Dingchuan (EX-B1), and Danzhong (CV 17) constitute the core acupoints of prescriptions for clinical acupoint application to prevent and treat lung diseases. Conclusion: It is clearly shown that the core acupoints are relatively concentrated and that the selected acupoints were mainly locally selected, which could be a matching reference for the long-term prevention and treatment of lung diseases, including COVID-19.