Object : This study is designed to evaluate the correlation between the data of DITI(Digital Inrared Thermographic Imaging) examination and the changes of clinical symptoms after the therapy of acupuncture in the patients with spondylolisthesis.
Contents :
The conservative therapy with acupuncture was performed during 3-4weeks.
The acupuncture points of BL23, BL24, BL25, BL40, BL57, BL60, BL62, GB30, GB31, ST36, TE3 was used.
In the pre- and post therapy, DITI examinations were performed in patients who had spondylolisthes in L-spine X-ray and were treated by acupuncttare simultaneously, and then tried to correlate the results of clinical symptoms with the difference of thermographic findings at pre-and post acupuncture.
Setting :
The standard routine thermographic exanninations were performed with thermography (DITI) in the 22 patients with spondylolisthesis at pre- and post acupuncture.
Patients : Thermographic imaging of 22 cases was analyzed. They had diagnosed spondylolisthes in L-spine X-ray. They were treated by acupuncture and moxibustion therapy in Wonkwang Oriental Hospital from May, 1998 to May, 2000.
Results :
1) The causes were congenital (4.5%), overwork (31.85%), trauma (13.65%), degenerative factor(50%)
2) The DITI results showed 45.4% below 0.3℃, 36.4% between 0.3 and 0.5℃, 4.5% between 0.5 and 0.7℃, 9.1% between 0.7 and 0.9℃, and 4.5% over 0.9℃.
3) The results of treatment using pain scale showes that 27.3% of patientsachieved excellent recovery and 54.6% achieved good recovery. After compairing the DITI results before and after treatment, we found 45.4% of patients achieved excellent recovery and 36.4% achieved good recovery.
Conclusion :
Acupuncture showed good results over 81.9% in clinical evaluation and 81.8% in DITI. Thermographic examination was valuable in the evaluation of therapeutic effect of acupuncture treatment.
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