Traditional Chinese Medicine: Diagnostics Overview

Series Summary

Traditional Chinese medicine is considered a complementary or alternative medical system in most parts of the world. It includes a range of traditional medical practices originating in China that developed over thousands of years. Traditional Chinese medicine practices include theories, diagnosis and treatments such as herbal medicine, acupuncture and massage. Traditional Chinese medicine theory claims that processes of the human body are interrelated and in constant interaction with the environment. Its practitioners believe that signs of disharmony help them to understand, treat and prevent illness and disease.

In this free video series a acupuncturist, Robert Linde, will show you an overview of diagnostic methods in traditional Chinese medicine. Robert will begin by presenting you with a brief overview. You'll then learn some methods for diagnosing ailments pertaining to the tongue, pulse, stool and bowel movements. Robert will also show you how weather and wind can affect the diagnostic process. In the end, Robert will teach you several interesting methods within tcm for diagnosing that may entice you to take a more serious look at alternative medicine.

Video Transcript

"When you first visit your Chinese acupuncture physician, they're going to have you fill out some standard medical forms where they're going to ask you a lot of questions. You may be used to going to your MD and not actually answering a lot of those questions in the kind of detail that an acupuncturist needs. So make sure you give them a great deal of detail about every little ache and pain and what seems to make it better or worse and then they're going to do some odd things. They're going to do things like ask you to stick out your tongue. They may look at the top of it, they may look at the underside. They're going to check your pulses on both hands and they're going to sit there for a few minutes whilst they do it. They're actually checking things different from the way your normal MD maybe checking them. So bear with them, be sure to ask them questions because most acupuncturists are very happy to explain to you why they're doing the things that they are. And most importantly, give them lots of details. Because they're going to ask about everything from your stools, maybe your menstruation, what kind of foods you like, what kind of weather you like, even what temperature you keep your air conditioner at. So, it?s going to be a little bit different experience that first time you're in to see your acupuncturist and give them lots of information."