• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.81-91
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• 2019

Objectives : Symptoms caused by traffic accidents can be divided into localized pain and systemic symptoms. Edema and pain can be increased due to obesity. During hospitalization of obese patients after traffic accident injury, obesity and systemic symptoms such as edema, dizziness, abdominal fullness and heavy body feeling might increase more by decreased physical activity due to pain. Methods : This report details on two cases of obese female inpatients with systemic symptoms after a car accident who were treated with wild ginseng complex (WGC) pharmacopuncture combined with Korean Medicine (KM) automobile insurance treatment. The Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), Neck Disablility Index (NDI) and the Oswestry Disablility Index (ODI) were evaluated before and after treatment for comparison. Body composition was also measured. Results : Localized pain improved with a decrease in patients' NRS, NDI and ODI scores. Systemic symptoms increased during hospitalization were also improved with changes of body composition. Conclusions : Combining WGC pharmacopuncture with KM automobile insurance treatment may be synergistically effective for the treatment of obese patients with systemic symptoms such as edema, heavy body feeling and abdominal fullness.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.421-447
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• 2014

Traditional medicine has been integrated into the national health system in many countries such as Korea, China, Taiwan, etc. Korea and China are most representative among them. The purpose of this study is to compare the policies on traditional medicine in Korea and China focusing on where it came from and where it is headed. In this regard, the study suggested the first analysis tool in the world for analyzing the policy of traditional medicine. The results of the study are as follows: First of all, the development process of Korean Medicine (KM) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) shows the same pattern, that is, both are influenced by its own national policies. Secondly, the difference between the two countries is due to the gap in the development status or the different aspects in national heath system. TCM is more vitalized in health system and has larger category, and stays ahead in globalization compared to KM. TCM covers Chinese medicine, integrative medicine and ethno-medicine. Korea emphasizes the role of KM in the declining birthrate and aging society, and promotes the overseas patient invitation strategy. China, on the other hand, establishes the medical system for emergency medical treatment and preventive treatment of major diseases and promotes overseas expansion of TCM service. In addition, Korea stressed the safety and distribution of herbal medicine, and China emphasizes production technologies. Korea has a strong medical device industry along with the government's fostering policy; however, in China, medical devices are in the R&D stage yet. Even though both countries promotes the drug development from natural products, Korea focuses on developing herbal cosmetics in application industry, but China shows weakness in policies on application industry. China shores up the foundation for culture and theory of traditional medicine, while Korea doesn't have related policy. Korea places emphasis on promoting collaboration with international organizations and medical volunteer programs, whereas China is more interested in mutual cooperation and real trade with other countries.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.70-75
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• 2014

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to report the clinical effect of Korean medicine (KM) treatment for Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP). Methods: Five HSP patients who demonstrated a Yin deficiency and who had a history of a previous upper respiratory tract infection were included in this study. Four patients had arthritis and three had severe stomachache. One of them appeared to have proteinuria and hematuria before starting KM treatment. Results: All patients were improved with only herbal medicine, Jarotang (JRT). Purpura in the lower extremities and abdominal pain, which were not treated by using a corticosteroid, disappeared and had not recurred after 6 months. Conclusion: These cases indicate that JRT may be effective in treating HSP in patients who demonstrate Yin deficiency, even though the number of cases was limited to five.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.171-189
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• 2011

Objectives: Female Sexual Dysfuction(FSD) is a common gynecologic condition and its prevalence is more higher than men. Despite its high prevalence and clinical importance, research on FSD is not enough in both of oriental and western medicine. The purpose of this study is to review research tendency of recent oriental medicine studies on FSD and to suggest the following research on FSD. Methods: We searched oriental medicine papers related to FSD published in the last 10 years(2001-2011) through Korean Medicine Gynecology Society database, KISS, RISS, NDSL, CNKI(China National Knowledge Infrastructure), and Pubmed. Results: 26 papers were searched, then 18 papers of them were related to Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM), 8 papers of them were related to Korean Medicine(KM). In classification according to paper type, 16 papers were clinical study, 1 paper was experimental study, 2 papers were bibliographic study, and 7 papers were the other study. Then 5 papers of clinical study was Randomized Controlled Trial(RCT). Conclusion: There was a lack of oriental medicine research on FSD. On the base of this study, so further research is needed. Especially, Clinical trials such as RCT have strong objective evidence power in the viewpoint of Evidence Based Medicine(EBM) are needed.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.122-132
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• 2021

Objectives : This systematic review aims to assess the effectiveness of thread embedding therapy on animal model for rheumatoid arthritis. Methods : Search was conducted in the Cochrane library, MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-Fang Database, Technology Journal Database, the Korean Studies Information Service System, the Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, the Research Information Sharing Service, the National Digital Science Library, the Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal and the Korea Citation Index. Data were extracted concerning animal model, intervention and rheumatoid arthritis indicator by two independent reviewers. Reporting quality was also evaluated by the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines 2.0. Results : One thousand thirty six studies were primarily selected. After screening, 10 studies met the inclusion criteria. 1 study was published 2005, 1 study was published 2010, 1 study was published 2012, 1 study was published 2015, 2 studies were published 2016, 3 studies were published 2017, 1 study was published 2018. The most frequently used acupoints were ST36 and BL23, and were used with an average frequency of 11.8 days. All of these thread embedding therapy studies were effective on behavioral, morphological, immunohistological and hematological indicators to treat of rheumatoid arthritis model. Conclusions : These results demonstrated the effectiveness of thread embedding therapy and suggested the putative mechanism. However, considering the small number of included studies, low reporting quality and differences in study design, further studies with rigorous designs and high reporting quality need to be conducted.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.95-109
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• 2021

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic. Mental sequelae occurring in patients with COVID-19 and the general population are important concerns. In Korea, herbal medicine is used nationwide to respond to this pandemic. It can be prescribed by COVID-19 telemedicine center of Korean medicine (KM). Among some herbal medicines, Gamiguibi-tang is the only herbal medicine prescribed for individuals with mental health, especially for those with insomnia. In this mini-review, the objective of this study was to summarize the evidence of some promising herbal medicines available for treating primary insomnia based on existing clinical and preclinical studies. Methods: A research team was formed for KM clinical practice guidelines for insomnia (version 1.0). Team members were provided with a list of references of relevant herbal medicines for insomnia. To gather evidence from clinical studies with appropriate sample sizes, among the list of references, randomized controlled trials for primary insomnia that included 50 subjects or more per arm and used herbal medicine were included in the final analysis. Moreover, pre-clinical studies examining the mechanism of action of each herbal medicine and studies on herb-drug interactions, were searched and summarized. Results: Four herbal medicines (Ondam-tang, Sanjoin-tang, Guibi-tang, and Hyeolbuchugeo-tang) were reviewed based on existing clinical and preclinical studies. Based on findings of existing studies, some suggestions of herbal medicines for insomnia in the COVID-19 era in Korea were suggested. Conclusions: Data of this study could be used to prepare a future revision of the manual of COVID-19 telemedicine center of KM.

• Integrative Medicine Research
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.195-219
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• 2015

Acupuncture therapy has been proved to be effective for diverse diseases, symptoms, and conditions in numerous clinical trials. The growing popularity of acupuncture therapy has triggered the development of modern acupuncture-like stimulation devices (ASDs), which are equivalent or superior to manual acupuncture with respect to safety, decreased risk of infection, and facilitation of clinical trials. Here, we aim to summarize the research on modern ASDs, with a focus on featured devices undergoing active research and their effectiveness and target symptoms, along with annual publication rates. We searched the popular electronic databases Medline, PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science, and analyzed English-language studies on humans. Thereby, a total of 728 studies were identified, of which 195 studies met our inclusion criteria. Electrical stimulators were found to be the earliest and most widely studied devices (133 articles), followed by laser (44 articles), magnetic (16 articles), and ultrasound (2 articles) stimulators. A total of 114 studies used randomized controlled trials, and 109 studies reported therapeutic benefits. The majority of the studies (32%) focused on analgesia and pain-relief effects, followed by effects on brain activity (16%). All types of the reviewed ASDs were associated with increasing annual publication trends; specifically, the annual growth in publications regarding noninvasive stimulation methods was more rapid than that regarding invasive methods. Based on this observation, we anticipate that the noninvasive or minimally invasive ASDs will become more popular in acupuncture therapy.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.434-442
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• 2015

The purpose of this review was to survey the Korean Medicine related papers about women with primary dysmenorrhea in order to develop the clinical protocol of the diagnostic medical device. We searched the literature from 2000 through April 2015 using 5 online databases including Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated Sysptem (OASIS), Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), DataBase Periodical Information Academic (DBpia) and Korean Medical Database (KMBase). We selected papers to meet the following inclusion criteria: the papers involved dysmenorrhea (excluding secondary dysmenorrhea), published papers (excluding textbook, educational materials, conferences, etc.) and the papers matched search keywords or scope, but excluded papers to meet the following exclusion criteria: the duplicative papers, get out of the keywords and scope and not in english or korean language. Finally we found 17 papers and classified the papers according to the three search purposes which were diagnostic tools for evaluating the menstrual pain, dysmenorrhea' pattern identification and menstrual phase. Out of the 16 studies, 4 studies were focused on the diagnostic tools including Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Measurement of Menstrual Pain (MMP) and etc. Other 5 studies were aimed at menstrual phase, and the other 7 studies were studied for pattern identification. The VAS has been widely used in research and in clinical practice for the detection of the menstrual pain. Treatments for patients with primary dysmenorrhea can be prescribed in consideration of their patterns of sasang constitution or body constitution as following: Qi stagnation-Blood deficiency, cold dampness, Qi deficiency-blood deficiency and liver-kidney deficiency etc. This results of research will be used as a useful material during plan a clinical study of primary dysmenorrhea and acquisition of good clinical data.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.320-326
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• 2016

Tongue diagnosis is convenient and non-invasive method to examine the body's functional condition, and it has been frequently used in traditional Korean Medicine (KM). The aim of this study was to investigate the difference of the tongue color assessed by computerized tongue image analysis system (CTIS) between the common cold (CC) patients and healthy subjects. A total of 85 participants, including 45 CC patients without organic diseases and 40 healthy subjects, were asked to complete the CC symptom questionnaire. A tongue image was acquired by using CTIS. Color differences in Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) L*, a* and b* between the CC patient group and the control group were analyzes by using paired t-test analysis. The variable CIE b* of the tongue body was significantly lower in CC than that in controls (P=0.019). The variable CIE L* of the tongue coating was significantly higher in CC than that in controls (P=0.032). In CC, the color of the tongue body seems to be changed to intense red color. The color of the tongue coating seems to be changed to thick fur. The present study demonstrated that the CTIS can be used as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for the objective and standardized evaluation of common cold in clinics.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.33-43
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• 2021

Objectives : This study seeks to grasp the current status of Koryo medical research in North Korea, by focusing on researchers and research topics. Methods : A network analysis of co-authors and keyword which were extracted from Koryo Medicine - a North Korean traditional medicine journal, was conducted. Results : The results of author network analysis was a sparse network due to the low correlation between authors. The domain-wide network density of co-authors was 0.001, with a diameter of 14, average distance between nodes 4.029, and average binding coefficient 0.029. The results of the keyword network analysis showed the keyword "traditional medicine" had the strongest correlation weight of 228. Other keywords with high correlation weight was common acupuncture (84) and intradermal acupuncture(80). Conclusions : Although the co-authors of the Koryo Medicine did not have a high correlation with each other, they were able to identify key researchers considered important for each major sub-network. In addition, the keywords of the Koryo Medicine journals had a very high linkage to herbal medicines.