Chinese acupuncture related content that is of interest to practitioners or that contains information which assumes some background knowledge on the part of the reader.
Worldwide there are an estimated 4 million people living with Parkinson's disease. Here in the US, approximately 50,000 people are newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease each year. First described by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817 as the "shaking palsy", Parkinson's has likely been around much longer. Syndromes similar to Parkinson's were described nearly 2500 years ago in foundational Chinese Medicine texts such as the Huangdi Neijing and even further back in Indian/Ayurvedic medical texts.
Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in the US and the third leading cause of death. Every year strokes effect 15 million people worldwide with 5 million of those resulting in death. Of the remaining 10 million survivors at least 5 million of those will be disabled to varying degrees requiring immediate and long-term care to regain function, speech, memory, and other related impairments. Smoking, obesity, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, and high blood pressure are important risk factors for stroke, with high blood pressure being the most strongly correlated.
Many patients who seek help from Chinese Medicine practitioners are coming for high cholesterol treatment or have already developed related complications. High cholesterol, or hyperlipidemia, is a significant risk factor (along with smoking, high blood pressure, inactivity and obesity) for cardiovascular disease and related issues. While public health efforts and natural health practitioners of all persuasions have encouraged dietary and lifestyle change to remedy the situation it continues to be a significant problem, particularly in developed countries.
Autism is a complicated medical condition with a range of symptoms that has no firmly established causal factors. The condition itself has been steadily rising in prevalance and as of a 2002 CDC study is thought to effect 1 in 150 children. Parents, researchers, government officials have all been involved in the debate as researchers explore medical causes such as various vaccines, environmental causes such as pollution, food additives, and societal factors such as bad parenting have even come up.
I offered a presentation to a group of western medical doctors regarding the use of acupuncture to treat the symptoms of Cancer and Cancer related treatments. I thought I would share the presentation to other practitioners in case they found it useful when meeting with other western medical doctors.
You can download the entire powerpoint presentation or view the presentation on-line by choosing the appropriate files below.
