Evidence Based Acupuncture

Park, Kyu Hyun; Yoo, Tae Woo

Abstract

Acupuncture is an important portion of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine and has been applied widely, but understanding of acupuncture is not complete, a steady progress has been made in recent years with modernized techniques. The controversies of acupuncture should be defined through scientific evidence. There are a lot of problems for application of acupuncture in practice and research, such as, in the diagnosis, therapy and evaluation of acupuncture. We need standardized tools and scientific methods for diagnosis and treatment. It is an essential key to refine the effect of acupuncture and to prove the mechanisms. We should have basic concepts of acupuncture and apply it objectively for promotion of health and prevention of illness and treatment of disease as mentioned in Medical Acupuncture. Korean Hand Acupuncture Therapy (KHT) has many advantages for this purpose. It was found and developed in 1971 and since has been widely used in the world. KHT is easy to learn and to practice without side effect. The important concept of health in KHT is defined as the harmonized state of cerebral circulation which consists of anterior and posterior circulation. Disease and dysfunction result from imbalance of the anterior and posterior circulation. We present the basic concept of KHT and some studies to prove the mechanism of acupuncture using thermograph, transcranial Doppler and fMRI. We need a standard research protocol of acupuncture. KHT can be a good candidate for this purpose. KHT fulfills the requirements such as role, theory, diagnosis, treatment and evaluation and study.