Medical acupuncture is a simplified version of traditional Chinese acupuncture which is learned by Western medical practitioners. Acupuncture (from Lat. ...

medicines, see medication and pharmacology. ... Terms and concepts in alternative medicine provides a glossary of quick and to the point definitions of important terms and concepts unique to alternative medicine (CAM). ... Terms and concepts in alternative medicine provides a glossary of quick and to the point definitions of important terms and concepts unique to alternative medicine (CAM). ... Terms and concepts in alternative medicine provides a glossary of quick and to the point definitions of important terms and concepts unique to alternative medicine (CAM). ... Terms and concepts in alternative medicine provides a glossary of quick and to the point definitions of important terms and concepts unique to alternative medicine (CAM). ... Terms and concepts in alternative medicine provides a glossary of quick and to the point definitions of important terms and concepts unique to alternative medicine (CAM). ... Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... Chinese culture has roots going back over five thousand years. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Western World. ...

History of medical acupuncture

Medical acupuncture was created for Western practitioners such as medical doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors and osteopaths who wish to use acupuncture based practices without the lengthy study of traditional Chinese Medicine theory which is usually required for acupuncturists. This Western version of medical acupuncture is lesser known than the traditional Chinese, but is increasing in popularity as otherwise mainstream medical practitioners in the West are seeing and taking more interest in alternative medicine. Medical acupuncture can also be seen as an attempt by orthodox Western medicine to understand the effects of acupuncture from a western scientific perspective rather than within the paradigm of Chinese traditional medicine. The British Medical Acupuncture Society publishes a quarterly peer reviewed journal, Acupuncture in Medicine, which is listed on Medline and Index Medicus. The word physician should not be confused with physicist, which means a scientist in the area of physics. ... Physical therapy can help restore lost functionality in many people. ... Chiropractic treatment uses manipulative therapy to correct subluxation, which has been shown to have some efficacy in treating back and neck pain, headache, and other symptoms of spinal-related conditions. ... Traditional Chinese medicine shop in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. ... An Acupuncturist is a person who practices acupuncture professionally. ... The term Western World or the West (also on rare occasions called the Occident) can have multiple meanings depending on its context (i. ... It has been suggested that Complementary and Alternative Medicine be merged into this article or section. ...

The term "acupuncture" is a Western one, derived from Latin and meaning "puncturing with needles". It was first used by the Dutchman Wilhelm Ten Rijn, who wrote a monograph in Latin on the subject (De Acupunctura) at the end of the seventeenth century. Traditional Chinese medicine had an influence on Europe due to exchange via the Silk Road trade routes. Goods and ideas both travelled between cultures in this way. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Motto: (French) Ik zal handhaven(Dutch) I shall stand fast1 Anthem: Wilhelmus van Nassouwe National animal: Lion Netherlands() – on the European continent() – in the European Union() [] Capital  (and largest city) Amsterdam2 Official languages Dutch3 Ethnic groups 80. ... The Silk Road Silk Route redirects here. ...

Acupuncture continued to attract interest from Western allopathic physicians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries though generally without much reference to its Oriental roots. This interest has continued down to the present, receiving considerable interest after President Nixon's visit to China in 1972, when surgeons witnessed surgical operations being carried out using acupuncture analgesia instead of anaesthetics. As a result of this interest, traditional Chinese medicine has become a global phenomena. With this interest came a desire by medical professionals to learn acupuncture without the difficult theory. Some traditional Chinese medicine theories include reference to philosophies of Taoist cosmology and to some Westerners these philosophies border on shamanism and mysticism, all of which can be difficult for some Westerners to understand. In the United Kingdom most practitioners of acupuncture are medical acupuncturists, either medical doctors or allied health professionals. The. British Medical Acupuncture Societyprovides training for medical doctors and allied health professionals. Many countries have similar organisations and there is an International Council of Medical Acupunturists ICMART which represents medical acupuncturists from over 80 countries. The term the Orient - literally meaning sunrise, east - is traditionally used to refer to Near, Middle, and Far Eastern countries. ... Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ... Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong in 1972. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... For other uses of painkiller, see painkiller (disambiguation) An analgesic (colloquially known as painkiller) is any member of the diverse group of drugs used to relieve pain. ... Anesthesia or anaesthesia (see spelling differences) has traditionally meant the condition of having the perception of pain and other sensations blocked. ... For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ... Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) order + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanitys place in it. ... A shaman doctor of Kyzyl. ... Mysticism from the Greek μυστικός (mystikos) an initiate (of the Eleusinian Mysteries, μυστήρια (mysteria) meaning initiation[1]) is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is an...

Differences between traditional oriental medical and western medical acupuncture

The main differences between traditional Chinese/Oriental and Western medical acupuncture are as follows.

1. The traditional theory of "points" and "meridians" is either ignored altogether or is radically reinterpreted because there is no physically verifiable anatomical or histological basis for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians.
2. The concepts of disease are derived from modern Western pathology instead of Oriental medical theory which predates use of the scientific method, and has received various criticisms based on scientific thinking.
3. Medical acupuncture is understood to work via the modern understanding of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry.

The principal differences between the traditional and medical acupuncture schools can be summarized as follows: Greek anatome, from ana-temnein, to cut up), is the branch of biology that deals with the structure and organization of living things; thus there is animal anatomy (zootomy) and plant anatomy (phytonomy). ... A thin section of lung tissue stained with hematoxylin and eosin. ... Acupuncture chart from the Ming dynasty Acupuncture (from Lat. ... The concept of meridians (Chinese: jing-luo 经络) arises from the techniques and doctrines of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), including acupuncture, acupressure, and qigong. ... Pathology (from Greek pathos, feeling, pain, suffering; and logos, study of; see also -ology) is the study of the processes underlying disease and other forms of illness, harmful abnormality, or dysfunction. ... Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ... Anatomical drawing of the human muscles from the Encyclopédie. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ... Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes and transformations in living organisms. ...

These differences are theoretical, but there are also practical differences. Whereas traditional acupuncture practitioners, at least today in the West, tend to work wholistically and address deficiencies or overall energy imbalances (often inserting several or large numbers of needles and maybe leaving them in place for 20 minutes or longer, some Western acupuncturists use many fewer needles (sometimes only one) and practise brief insertion (from two or three minutes right down to one second). Brief needling techniques are also used by those traditionally trained, though they may be less common. For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ... Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Medical acupuncture lends itself to use in a busy practice where there is little time to spend on each patient. It also has the advantage that it can be learned much more easily than traditional acupuncture by modern health practitioners such as doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors, and podiatrists. Such people do not have to learn another system of thought or technique; rather, they see acupuncture as an extension of what they are already doing.

For traditionalists, western medical acupuncture appears to be a watered-down version of "real" acupuncture, having at best a limited degree of effectiveness in certain situations. In some jurisdictions, the practice of needle insertion based on local physical symptoms, and without traditional acupuncture training, is called 'dry needling' to distinguish it from traditional acupuncture. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Unfortunately, there is still relatively small amounts of research conducted to support the use of acupuncture, traditional or modern, and very little comparative research comparing various approaches. Research dollars are not readily available in medicine that does not show large profits, compared to pharmaceutical or surgical interventions.

Choosing where to needle

If acupuncture is not based on the full range of traditional oriental medicine ideas, how can we choose where to insert the needles? There are several possibilities. One popular idea is to use the concept of trigger points. These are tender areas, mostly in muscles, from which pain and other sensations may radiate to distant areas. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) these are considered Ah Shi points, or spontaneously tender points, which are often appropriate for needling as part of a treatment. This article or section needs to be wikified. ...

Another idea is to base the needling on body segments. The spinal cord is arranged segmentally, with pairs of nerve roots emerging from it along its length. These nerve root pairs supply the skin in a series of stripes, so that it is possible to say which spinal segments supply sensation to different parts of the body. A similar arrangement exists at deeper levels, so that we may speak of myotomes (related to the muscles) and sclerotomes (related to the bones and joints). In some versions of medical acupuncture the needles are inserted in segments that are related to the internal organs that one wishes to treat. This is very similar to the TCM approach of using tendino-muscular meridians or regions, which closely match the same areas. In vertebrate embryonic development, a group of tissues formed from somites that develop into the body wall muscle. ... In vertebrate embryonic development, a group of embryonic tissues formed from somites that develop into the vertebrae. ...

Other simplified ways of choosing where to needle also exist. However, some medical acupuncturists think that it often makes relatively little difference where the needles are inserted, at least in quite broad terms. Certainly there seem to be some patients who react very strongly to needling and some in whom the actual site of treatment seems not very important. A traditionally-trained acupuncturist, however, might consider this belief heresy, and consider this random approach potentially harmful or even dangerous. Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the Catholic or Orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. ...

There are also many techniques of electroacupuncture (mostly developed by Japanese and European acupuncture researchers), one which uses only 24 points. Each meridian has a so-called test point, a tonification point, and a sedation point. A machine records the electrodermal current at the identified test point for each meridian. The values are placed into a chart. Based on the clustering of the values of the test points for each meridian - the practitioner is able to identify meridians which are hyperfunctioning and hypofunctioning. If the meridian is hypofunctioning - then the tonification point is needled to increase the electronic impulse flowing through said meridian. If the meridian is hyperfunctioning, then the sedation point is needled to decrease the electronic activity in the meridian. The process is called balancing the meridians. There are no complex points to remember, just 24 points on the bilateral meridians.

Mechanism

Two attempts at western medical explanation of analgesic and pain control action have been suggested:

1. The gate theory of pain, first put forward some thirty years ago by Patrick Wall and Robert Melzack, postulates the existence of gates or filters in the spinal cord that can modulate (increase or decrease) transmission of pain information within the nervous system.
2. The second explanation is based on the existence of natural opiates (pain-relieving substances such as endorphins and enkephalins) in the central nervous system and elsewhere in the body

Scientific research in recent decades have shown that these theories, although they support some of the possible partial mechanisms of pain relief from local and distal needling, are not quite accurate even on the pain control mechanism of acupuncture. The gate control theory of pain, put forward by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall in 1962 [1], and again in 1965 [2], is the idea that physical pain is not a direct result of activation of pain receptor neurons, but rather its perception is modulated by interaction between different neurons. ... Sir Patrick Henry Bligh Wall KBE (1981), M.C., VRD (14 October 1916–May 1998) was a British Conservative politician. ... The Spinal cord nested in the vertebral column. ... In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic alkaloids found in opium. ... // Runners high redirects here. ... Endorphins are endogenous opioid biochemical compounds. ... A diagram showing the CNS: 1. ...

External links

• American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
• http://www.acampbell.org.uk/acupuncture/
• UK Physiotherapy Acupuncture Site