• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.69-73
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• 2007

Objectives : With an assumption of the traditional oriental medical theory, we were to evaluate the effect of tonification/sedation-manipulated acupuncture on autonomic nervous activity in healthy subjects. Methods : This study is a randomized cross-over trial. We enrolled healthy subjects, and assigned them randomly into group A or group B. Group A received acupuncture therapy on Shen-Men (He-7) and Nei-Kuan (EH-6) with tonification-manipulation, while Group B received it with sedation-manipulation. Their heart rate variability was monitored for 2 hours. After 3 days of washout period, the subjects were crossed over to the other manipulation method, and the same procedures were performed. Results : There was no statistical significance in the change of RR, SDNN, LF, HF, and LF/HF ratio between the tonification-manipulated and the sedation-manipulated groups. However, HF curve in the tonification manipulated group showed increasing tendency for 15 minutes after acupuncture. Conclusions :We suggest that the traditional tonification-manipulated acupuncture on Shen-Men and Nei-Kuan could increase parasympathetic activity shortly after acupuncture, but further evaluation on a larger sample size is needed to confirm this suggestion.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.134-138
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• 2011

Glycyrrhetinic acid, which is a component of licorice, can cause hypermineralocorticoidism through the inhibition of $11{\beta}$-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. So, a high dose intake of licorice can lead to hypermineralocorticoidism with potassium loss and depression of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. We report a 73-year-old man with muscle weakness of proximal lower limbs with hypokalemia (Serum $K^+$: 1.4 mEq/L) due to taking self-prescribed licorice without OMD's diagnosis. He boiled 60~100g licorice / day in water and drank it intermittently for 1 month due to arthralgia and swelling of both his knees. Patient's serum renin activity and aldosterone level were far beyond the normal range. He also had metabolic alkalosis with pH 7.552. After quitting the licorice, hypokalemia and muscle weakness of proximal lower limbs gradually improved within 1week.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.2 s.66
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• pp.96-102
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• 2006

Background & Purpose : Acupuncture with aromatherapy (AA) is a branch of complementary or alternative therapy recently growing in use. As the use of aromatherapy itself has grown so rapidly in recent years, studies about its safety have been accumulating. However, safety of AA has not been studied clinically and the treatment method which has the needles inserted after spreading essential oils exposes the human body more directly to components than aromatherapy. Therefore, we examined the safety of AA on patients treated thereby and physicians practising it. Methods : We observed all inpatients treated with AA from November 21, 2005 to March 31, 2006, in Kyung Hee Oriental Medical Center. During treatment, we monitored all of the newly developed signs from the patients to assess the adverse effects of AA. The patients' and physicians' general characteristics (gender, age, present illness, and treatment days) were obtained from medical records and analyzed to assess the clinical safety of AA in detail. Results : There were 440 patients treated with AA; clinical adverse effects appeared in 3 of them, which can be assessed as 0.7%. The major symptom was chest discomfort and choking originated from smell aversion condition (2 patients), and the other adverse effect was sensation of itching and reddening. However, none of them seemed to have direct relation with AA. A total of eight physicians applied AA and there were no symptoms related to it among them. Conclusions : We suggest that our results will contribute to confirming the safety of AA by offering clinical evidence.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.3 s.67
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• pp.241-250
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• 2006

Backgrounds: Blood stasis is hon as an important pathologic factor for vascular disorder in Oriental medicine. Despite its clinical importance there have been few objective tests for diagnosing blood stasis. Objectives: This study was designed to examine the relationship between blood stasis and arterial stiffness measured by cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI). Methods: The subjects were 104 ischemic stroke patients with onset after 14 days. Their general characteristics, lipid profiles and uric acid were recorded. The degree of arterial stiffness was assessed by CAVI, and blood stasis was evaluated by diagnostic criteria. The data were analyze4 by chi-square test, student t-test, spearman correlation analysis, and pearson correlation analysis. Then, stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis was applied in order to exclude the interactions among several factors. Results: There were significant differences in right, left and higher CAVI between the blood stasis group and the non blood stasis group (p-value<0.01). Age, systolic blood pressure, triglyceride and CAVI had relationships with blood static scores. In multiple logistic regression analysis, the adjusted odds ratio of blood stasis for arterial stiffness with CAVI above 9 were 7.091 (95% confidence interval, $1.641\sim30.638$). Conclusions: The results demonstrated the relationship between blood stasis and arterial stiffness measured by CAVI. Therefore, we suggest that CAVI should be one of the objective tests for diagnosing blood stasis.

• The Journal of the Society of Stroke on Korean Medicine
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2007

Objective : To report cases of patients with Parkinson's syndrome. Design : Case-series Patients and methods : 35 of patients with Parkinson's syndrome who visited Department of Cardiovascular and Neurologic Diseases of Kyunghee Oriental Medical Center were treated by acupuncture and herbal medicine from May until December 2007. 35 patients were participated in this study. 21 patients were dropped out during the trial, and we evaluated symptom progress of 14 patients by using several questionnaires such as Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale(UPDRS), modified Hoehn & Yahr stage (H&Y stage) and Schwab & England ADL scale(S&E ADL scale). Results : The whole group consists of 14 male patients and 21 female patients. Mean±SD age range is 64.5±8.4. There were no significant differences of the demographic and clinical characteristics between the case group and drop-out group. The mean±SD medical treatment period of the Case group were 8.4±6.3weeks, the mean±SD of the total score in first medical treatment UPDRS section 1~3 were 29.6±11.0, the mean±SD of the final score were 27.1±12.6, all of which showed significant improvement(p=0.007). There were no significant changes on the H&Y stage and S&E ADL scale. Conclusion : Patients with Parkinson's syndrome who visited Department of Cardiovascular and Neurologic diseases of Kyunghee Oriental Medical Center had a tendency of showing improvement in clinical symptoms.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.908-913
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• 2010

Bojungiki-tang is a traditional oriental medicine to boost the immune system. In this study, we investigated the effects of Bojungiki-tang by withdrawal of isolation of VRE colonization. Four cases of post-stroke patients with VRE colonization took Bojungiki-tang and continuously were followed up with stool cultures. After three times negative stool VRE, we withdrew isolation of VRE colonization. One case patient was diagnosed with VRE colonization in another hospital and had no withdrawal during that period. He was admitted to Kyung-hee University Oriental Medicine where he took Bojungiki-tang. After three times negative stool VRE, we withdrew isolation of the patient. These results demonstrate that Bojungiki-tang is effective on boosting immunity level. Further studies are needed to better characterize this protective effect of Bojungiki-tang.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.109-118
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• 2010

Objectives : This pilot study is designed to reveal the effect of Carthami-semen acupuncture treatment on chronic daily headache. Methods : 1. All the voluntary subjects were diagnosed as CDH. 2. Carthami-semen acupuncture is applied 2 times a week for 4 weeks. 3. The patients were assessed by Headache impairment test score(HIT), Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey, and Headache Free Days(HFD) before and after 4 weeks treatment, and two weeks the treatment finished. Results : The result were as follows ; 1. HIT score decreased from $65.3{\pm}5.5$ to $53.1{\pm}9.4$, and furthermore declined to $49.5{\pm}8.0$ after 2 weeks the treatment finished. 2. HFD increased from 19.1% to 31.5% during the treatment time. Moreover it showed continuous effectiveness after 2 weeks the treatment finished. 3. SF-36 showed significant improvement on all of the QOL items. Conclusions : This pilot study suggests that Carthami-semen acupuncture treatment has an effect on the CDH patients.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.57-61
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• 2006

Objectives : With an assumption of traditional oriental medical theory, to evaluate the effect of tonification/sedation manipulative acupuncture on blood pressure in male normotensives. Methods : This study was a randomized cross-over trial. We enrolled healthy male normotensive subjects, and assigned them randomly to group A or group B. Group A received acupuncture therapy on Shen-Men (He-7) and Nei-Kuan (EH-6) with tonification-manipulation, while group B received it with sedation-manipulation. Blood pressure was assessed every ten minutes for 2 hours. After 3 days of washout period, the subjects were crossed over to the other manipulation, and the same procedures were performed. Results : We observed that blood pressure stimulated by the sedation-manipulation had a tendency to decrease compared to that by the tonification-manipulation. Conclusions : We suggest the sedation manipulation has more synergic effect with the inhibitory effects of Shen-Men and Nei-Kuan on the sympathetic nervous system than the tonification-manipulation.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.96-104
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• 2006

Insamsansa-eum (Renshenshanzha-yin, ISE) is a new medicine developed to prevent and treat atherosclerotic diseases. To explore antiatherosclerotic effects of ISE, we evaluated the effects of ISE on serum lipids of hypercholesterolemic rats in vivo, as well as its antioxidant activities in vitro. In vitro, ISE showed 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and superoxide radical scavenging activities, and inhibited hemolysis induced by 2,2' -azobis-2-amidinopropane dihydrochloride (AAPH) in a dose-dependent manner. In vivo, ISE significantly inhibited increase of total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) and triglyceride (TG) values in both high cholesterol diet and Triton WR-1339 models. It also significantly inhibited decrease of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) value in the high cholesterol diet model. Collectively, our data suggest that ISE has the potential to control the risk of atherosclerosis development.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.129-140
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• 2010

Objective: The aim of this study was to prove adjacent effect of Oriental Medical Therapy on aphasia after stroke. Method: We studied patients who took K-WAB (AQ; aphasia quotient) twice during their language therapy at Kyunghee University Hospital & Oriental Medicine Hospital to retrospectively investigate the effect of Oriental medical therapy on aphasia. 18 patients with post-stroke aphasia were assigned to receive one of the following adjuncts: Group A that received language therapy with Oriental medical therapy (n=12) and Group B (n=6) that received language therapy only; AQ score of Group A was compared against Group B. Result: Total AQ score and most partial scores, except 'Contents delivery', were better in Group A. 'Total AQ score', 'Fluency', and 'Auditory verbal comprehension score' presented statistical significance. Conclusion: In this study, we demonstrated the effect of Oriental medical therapy on aphasia after stroke through AQ score improvement.