Like in other medical specialisations, also acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine follow the rule that correct and effective cure comes only after prior thorough diagnostic process. In European conditions and for systematic evaluation of the patient´s health state, it is necessary to consider all aspects of the particular pathological development, taking into account insights by modern diagnostic examination methods and previous diagnostic conclusions by other experts as well. At allowing for diagnosis provided by means of modern medicine combined with application of specific traditional diagnostic approaches we can achieve a complex insight into the patient´s problems and choose the right therapeutic treatment from the wide-range selection.
Thoroughgoing diagnostics will tell us about the current condition and prognosis of the client and will show whether the cure can be done by acupuncture alone, or if a combination of acupuncture and other traditional therapeutic methods is needed, or whether a merge of modern and traditional methods, which are more suitable at severe, e.g. oncological diagnosis, is necessary.
The most frequent diagnostic procedure is as follows:
Anamnesis: Careful listening to patient´s difficulties presented in their own words is a key to further procedure and progression of the diagnostic process. Besides detailed account of troubles, the physician focuses on family background and occurrence of problems in the family, full chronological development of the disease, impacts of social and working environment, other e.g. infectious illnesses, influence of food, seasons, etc. By expert and targeted questions they also try to find out the patient´s prevailing type in the yin and yang scale, which can hint further prognosis of the disorder. Types with yang disposition are more inclined to acute, inflammatory, cardiovascular complications, while types with yin disposition tend more to chronic diseases of degenerative character, tumours, schizophrenia, depressions, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer, etc.
Sight: All begins with the patient´s first greeting in the doctor´s office, when the physician notices the tone, intensity and colour of the voice, mood and current mental state, or pain-forced carriage of body. According to tint and dermahaemia, tendency to sweating even without high temperature, and active attitude, the patients themselves show the more dominant yang. At supremacy of yin, the completion is pale, psychomotor slowed down, at lying the body is twisted, the patient is holding the painful spot, etc.
Touch: Apart from surface observation of the skin´s tone, hydration, and informative examination of the body temperature, a so-called in-depth palpation and examination of the inner organs´ status is performed, mainly at abdominal aches. A traditional Chinese physician looks for the so-called alarming – warning places on the skin. These points appear and disappear temporarily, depending upon the stage of the disorder, indicate affected areas of a particular channel or organ, and during cure hint at progression and prognosis of the disease. At pricking this point, in most cases the painful symptom vanishes; which at the same time has a therapeutic meaning for the patient. As the disease develops, sensitivity of the lop-ear points which correspond to the ill organs increases. Sometimes, at chronic diseases, the skin colour on these ear points changes too. These and similar modification are made use of in acupuncture or warming of these active spots by moxa or other healing herbs. A compromise and modern approach also in traditional Chinese medicine is injection of modern, Western drugs into these active points and thus achieving a faster effect.
Observation of Tongue: This highly specific diagnostic method has a several-thousand-year tradition and has been developing with time. Observation of tongue focuses on the tongue alone, its shape, placement, morphology, colour, coat, and other factors. According to traditional Chinese medicine, all these aspects are in close link to inner organs, acupuncture channels, blood, body liquids, and disease-causing reasons. A physician trained in this way will detect even a just starting disorder which has not yet manifested itself in laboratory parameters and is showing only via non-specific symptoms, indefinable aches or chronic and unexplainable fatigue. The Chinese named e.g. weakening of the life energy Qi and invasion of pathological coldness into organism accompanied by pale tongue or impact of outside pathological warmth consuming the body liquids and life-giving yin supplemented by dark-red colouration by simple and understandable language. Yellow, thickly coat tongue e.g. indicates a chronic problem with digestion system; thin yellow coat signals mostly seizure of lungs by pathological warmth going along with humid and productive cough and high temperature. It helps the doctor to determine the treatment necessary for cleaning the organism and elimination of the roots of the disease. It is exactly this individual approach to the patient and concentration on the cause of the disorder, not only on its symptoms, which secures for quick and effective relief and lasting cure.
Pulse Diagnostics: This “classical” diagnostic method, despite its demandingness and possibility of human senses failure, still has its diagnostic value and is a standard contribution for physicians trained in traditional Chinese medicine. The pulse is analysed on the radial artery on the arm by a special technique and pays attention to three points on the left arm and three on the right one, in which demonstrate functional conditions of the inner body organs, differentiating at deep and surface palpation. This procedure investigates not only the functional status of organs and fullness or emptiness of particular channels, but the general situation of the patient´s energetic balance. Combinations of these techniques create as many as 42 different pulse types; in our conditions, however, we work with a reduced number.
Instrument Diagnostics: The most recent novelty in diagnostics and a bridge connecting traditional Chinese medicine with the latest medical research are special instruments using principles of traditional Chinese medicine, the theory based on existence of acupuncture channels, five elements, the theory of yin and yang, and other aspects. One of the undoubtedly most modern apparatus of the last generation, which meets these requirements, is the German diagnostic device Bicom 2000. Based on the principle of electromagnetic waves of cells in ill organs, it cures and recovers the damaged tissues and organ systems.
