Acugraph 3?, 3000?

February 20, 2009

By chance one time, I was in place where an inventor also rented space. He was

working on an aspect of telemedicine systems for some group of entrepreneurs.

Specifically, coordinating the obtaining of info about a patient's vital signs,

gathered at one terminal, standardizing the analog signals to be digitized and

relayed to a remote terminal, where after being ran through a program, could

display the data on screen, in synchronous real time for a medical worker or

system to act upon. Or record it for patient history, or for statistical

analysis, or anything. (The technology of implantable micro devices for

monitoring, and/or drug delivery systems, AIMDD, is another topic.)

Ideally, theoretically, almost any health parameter, given the right

transducer, could be incorporated into the system, even TCM parameters,

(theoretically). There is machinery attempting that now, as in this topic. At

some point, a person may lay on a special bunk in a shuttle orbiting Jupiter,

and get a full medical workup, with recommendations, form the downlink terminal

in Bangalore. Fully automatic and fine tuned. Science fiction.

My curiousity, is when does the human part withdraw from the process? Now these

systems are guided mostly by West Med models; lab results, chem analysis etc.

This is just the begining. In time, pulses, tongue and eye imaging, meridian

testing, even palpation machinery could be devised and minaturized and

incorporated, all depending on what the theory behind the design is. Over time

accuracy and variants and x-factors will be encountered and probably largely

overcome. The broad view of what is important for acurate diagnosis, will

supposedly guide the design, sucess and failure will hone it.

As medicine evolves, our terminology and systems, to me, should play a part.

Integrative future medicine, if it really serves the patient, instead of profit,

will incorporate our diagnostic methods.

But to me, feeling a pulse is more than gathering bio-mechanical data of an

artery or vein, it also is touching the whole person, opening to their recesses

and inner self a bit. Subtle information can sometimes surface, giving insight

and clarity. And, even touching the pulse can simultaneously be therapy. Sending

qi into the blood, the flow the connection. That's ideal. But that's just one

way. So many ways. For many, the qigong, energy medicine is too hairy-fairy and

not repeatable. It depends how someone enjoys practicing, I guess.

More and more I'm feeling the stored emotional and spiritual aspects of

people's live play great importance, for their continuity of health and

recovery. Accidents, lifestyle, mood, etc., over time. Holistic, the inner life

and outer life.

The end goal of computerized medicine will make the practitioner obsolete, or a

dilettante.

With the rapid emergence of mental disease or distress climbing toward first

place as main complaint, tho, hands on medicine will be preferred.

Some machinery does what it says it can, more will soon, no doubt. Some is so

far from the way I think about medicine, it turns me away. Repeatable results

will probably make more and more medical workers use them. Depends on how we

want to practice, some people are wowed by technology, too.

All this makes me think the issues we've been dealing with for a while are

important to examine. And I'll try to be less of a clown, I'm sure seeing a post

from me makes some people sigh, roll thier eyes, and scramble to delete it. I

appreciate all of your information here. Thanks much.

--- On Fri, 2/20/09, RoseAnne Spradlin <ra6151 wrote:

RoseAnne Spradlin <ra6151

Re: Re: Acugraph 3?

Chinese Medicine

Friday, February 20, 2009, 11:50 AM

On Feb 20, 2009, at 10:24 AM, Daniel Schulman wrote:

> Opting for machines that 'measure' meridian activity is a

> conscious decision on the part of the practitioner terminate their

> own cultivation of skill.

Daniel, Thomas and others,

In one sense, I don't disagree with the main point that you both want

to make - that we don't need machines to validate us, impress the

public or build a practice.

Yet, because I have been treated by a practitioner who uses one of

these devices with a computer program, I want to weigh in again (I

made this point not so long ago when this issue came up before) to

say that one cannot make blanket statements as to why someone chooses

to go this route. Just because it is not your choice, and doesn't

appear to be a good choice for you, doesn't mean it's not a good

choice for someone else. You really need to know something about the

individual situation before making such judgments. I have to say, I

feel like this rush to judgment and rush to condemn other people's

choices expressed on this group is disturbing.

The person I have seen who uses a machine like this was trained in

Taiwan and worked in a large hospital there before coming to the

states. To build his practice here he was teaching and seeing

patients in multiple locations. The fact that the patient info is

fed directly into the computer means the practitioner can track

patient progress for years without carrying around files. My

experience with this practitioner is that there is still a lot of

shen to shen contact - a lot of talking, questioning, discussing life

issues, etc. And it's not the machine who is treating the person -

hello - the needles are inserted by the person, not the machine! The

Qi of each meridian is measured at the jing well points in his

system, and he also prescribes herbs.

I added this note before, but will add it again - for 2 years I have

been treated by this person and by Jeffrey Yuen, and their diagnoses

have been nearly identical over the course of 2 yrs time.

I didn't pick this practitioner for the machine - I didn't even know

he used it when I went for my first appt. It's not my own style, but

I do think it works in the hands of someone who is intelligent, well-

trained and experienced (and able to work just as well without the

machine if necessary.) It doesn't really matter to me whether

someone feels my pulse at the wrist or probes the jing well points of

my hands and feet. Both have led to good treatments, in my experience.

RoseAnne

>

February 20, 2009

Mystir,

No eye rolling from here :0)

> By chance one time, I was in place where an inventor also rented

> space. He was working on an aspect of telemedicine systems for some

> group of entrepreneurs. Specifically, coordinating the obtaining of

> info about a patient's vital signs, gathered at one terminal,

> standardizing the analog signals to be digitized and relayed to a

> remote terminal, where after being ran through a program, could

> display the data on screen, in synchronous real time for a medical

> worker or system to act upon. Or record it for patient history, or for

> statistical analysis, or anything. (The technology of implantable

> micro devices for monitoring, and/or drug delivery systems, AIMDD, is

> another topic.)

> Ideally, theoretically, almost any health parameter, given the right

> transducer, could be incorporated into the system, even TCM

> parameters, (theoretically). There is machinery attempting that now,

> as in this topic. At some point, a person may lay on a special bunk in

> a shuttle orbiting Jupiter, and get a full medical workup, with

> recommendations, form the downlink terminal in Bangalore. Fully

> automatic and fine tuned. Science fiction.

> My curiousity, is when does the human part withdraw from the process?

> Now these systems are guided mostly by West Med models; lab results,

> chem analysis etc. This is just the begining. In time, pulses, tongue

> and eye imaging, meridian testing, even palpation machinery could be

> devised and minaturized and incorporated, all depending on what the

> theory behind the design is. Over time accuracy and variants and

> x-factors will be encountered and probably largely overcome. The broad

> view of what is important for acurate diagnosis, will supposedly guide

> the design, sucess and failure will hone it.

There's a good point... diagnostic machines serve allopathic medicine -

and many a patient - well. Anyhow QUANTIFIABLE data is best collected by

objective diagnostic machinery since MDs, reseachers, acupuncturists,

etc are human beings and human beings have subjective minds influencing

any collected data (Quantum Mechanics).

Any truly holistic form of medicine is should not be refusing

objectively collected data - absolutely not. However it is really

important to be able to separate the quantifiable from the qualitative

to transcend them both and treat from a higher perspective embracing

them both.

> But to me, feeling a pulse is more than gathering bio-mechanical data

> of an artery or vein, it also is touching the whole person, opening to

> their recesses and inner self a bit. Subtle information can sometimes

> surface, giving insight and clarity. And, even touching the pulse can

> simultaneously be therapy. Sending qi into the blood, the flow the

> connection. That's ideal. But that's just one way. So many ways. For

> many, the qigong, energy medicine is too hairy-fairy and not

> repeatable. It depends how someone enjoys practicing, I guess.

Testing blood/urine/feces samples and even meridian measurements

(usually electrical conductivity, heat conductivity, polarity etc.) tell

something about amounts of something or other (Jing) and making a back

to basics CM diagnosis (pulse, abdominal/meridian palpation, facial

color, tongue diagnosis, flat palm detection and the many other methods

of diagnosis in our tradition) is all about the qualitative expression:

The function (Qi) of the mind (Shen) interacting with the body (jing)

transforming into the spiritual being we all are (JingShen).

....and on a side note: Qi Gong treatment is fully repeatable! So is

acupuncture/herbal medicine performed by knowledgable practitioners.

> More and more I'm feeling the stored emotional and spiritual aspects

> of people's live play great importance, for their continuity of health

> and recovery. Accidents, lifestyle, mood, etc., over time. Holistic,

> the inner life and outer life.

Absolutely - it's all about the practitioners spiritual development,

really - because - dare I say it - we are practicing a spiritual type of

medicine.

> With the rapid emergence of mental disease or distress climbing toward

> first place as main complaint, tho, hands on medicine will be

> preferred.

My clients at least.....

> Some machinery does what it says it can, more will soon, no doubt.

> Some is so far from the way I think about medicine, it turns me away.

> Repeatable results will probably make more and more medical workers

> use them. Depends on how we want to practice, some people are wowed by

> technology, too.

> All this makes me think the issues we've been dealing with for a

> while are important to examine. And I'll try to be less of a clown,

> I'm sure seeing a post from me makes some people sigh, roll thier

> eyes, and scramble to delete it. I appreciate all of your information

> here. Thanks much.

Please, Mystir, don't excuse yourself!

:0)

Thomas

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