Abstract
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the preventive effects of Sambok-go for upper respiratory tract infection. Methods: Sambok-go was performed to outpatients which had visited Daejeon university oriental medicine hospital. The number of participants who received Sambok-go at least once were 85, 21 patients did not receive Sambok-go three times were excluded first. Participants who received treatment three times were 64 patients. After the 2011 winter, 2012.05 we follow-up by telephone, except eight, 56 patients were analyzed. Sambok-go is composed of 8 kinds of medicinal herbs. Each Sambok-go weighs about 1.1g and attatchment surface diameter is about 1.5 cm. Sambok-go was attached to both side of 폐유(肺兪)(BL13), 심유(心兪)(BL15), 폐유(膈兪)(BL17), patients under the age of 15 were attached for an hour, patients over 15 years age were attatched for 3 hours. Results: Among the finally analyzed 56 participants, we compared the number of flu outbreak during winter before and after treatment. Before treatment measured $6.14{\pm}6.57$, after treatment measured $1.57{\pm}1.14$. In conclusion, the number of flu outbreak was significantly decreased(p<0.001). To investigate the effect of worsening factors on the pre-existing upper respiratory diseases, we checked whether the patients had pre-existing upper respiratory diseases. The patients who already had old upper respiratory diseases were 34. The increase in the frequency of deterioration in 5 patients, 4 patients no change, decreased in 24 cases, one patient was unresponsive. After evaluating the satisfaction of The patients who were treated with the Sambok-Go, the 29 cases were very satisfied, the 23 were satisfied, None of the paitents showed dissatisfaction or bad dissatisfaction. Conclusion: Sambok-go seems to be effective in the prevention of URI. Further studies are recommended to confirm this effect.