Search

To explore the effectiveness and safety of cardiac rehabilitation qigong exercise in stable coronary artery disease (CAD) patients undergoing phase III rehabilitation.

Clinical reasoning is generally defined as a way of thinking about diagnostic or therapeutic decision making in clinical practice. Different cognitive models have been proposed for the clinical reasoning process which takes place during the clinical encounter with a patient. This may have similarities with similar approaches used in Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM). Jinchal, the clinical encounter, has specific features in TKM and different Jinchal processes are closely related to several underlying cognitive models in clinical reasoning. It is a necessary process to see the patient, but in TKM, the method has characteristic aspects which should be evaluated based on the principle of clinical reasoning.

Many clinical trials concerning acupuncture are flawed by methodological problems. One of the major difficulties is the appropriate selection and use of a placebo control. This article evaluates the use of sham acupuncture as a placebo control and analyzes its credibility as a control treatment. Sixty-four subjects were assessed for their perception of whether they were receiving sham or real acupuncture while participating in a clinical trial of acupuncture. It was found that if used under specific experimental conditions, sham acupuncture can function as a credible control. Specific strategies are suggested to maintain the credibility of sham acupuncture as a placebo control.

To measure empathy within the therapeutic relationship between fourth year Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) intern practitioners and their patients, who are first-year students within the same program.

Blinding is considered an important methodological characteristic in clinical trials to minimise bias and maximise the validity of a trial. Unlike pharmaceutical substances, most herbal medicines have distinctive sensory specifications, including odour and taste, which can be quite challenging when developing a placebo control to match the specific characteristics of herbal substances being examined. The present study was, therefore, designed to evaluate whether the participants could differentiate an active herbal capsule (Ganopoly combination) from a placebo material capsule. The aim of this study was to develop a suitable placebo substance for encapsulation to be used in a future herbal medicine clinical trial.