ObjectivesThe purposes of this study were to develop a pain management model using traditional medicine (TM) vodou healing methods; to survey a sample of French dentists to rate components of conventional and proposed TM vodou-based pain management model; and to assess the possibility of conventional, allopathic providers to integrate TM or complementary and alternative medicine concepts.MethodsFrom a set of 30 fact sheets collected from TM African healers (vodou healers), main clinical concepts and terminology were extracted. Twenty vodou-based pain management concepts were collected from an interview with a TM vodou practitioner. From this information, a 7-step vodou-based pain management model was created. A sample of 40 French dentists from Nantes, France, whose practices focused on the clinical treatment of dental pain, was surveyed to assess the importance of both TM (vodou) and conventional biomedical components.ResultsSeventy percent of the dentists sampled rated the rational components of the TM model as “very important” or “important” for pain treatment, whereas 2 other traditional concepts were considered to be “supernatural” or beyond understanding.ConclusionThis study showed that traditional healers used conventional concepts and conventional practitioners could use traditional concepts. This suggests that conventional allopathic medical providers have the capacity to integrate biomedical concepts and other therapeutic and explanatory models. This information may be helpful to understand and improve risk management by anticipating and preventing potential reasons for failure in TM integration strategies and to enhance communication between patients, healers, and physicians to optimize TM or complementary and alternative medicine integration.

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VI Panorama de l'auriculothérapie et de l'auriculomédecine Dans la même collection : Déjà paru :-Une introduction à la médecine traditionnelle chinoise. Le corps théorique, Marc Sapriel et Patrick Stoltz, septembre 2006 -Nez, Gorge, Oreille en médecine traditionnelle chinoise, Bernard Cygler, septembre 2006 -L'esprit de l'aiguille. L'apport du Yi Jing à la pratique de l'acupuncture, Michel Vinogradoff, septembre 2006 -Auriculothérapie. L'Acupuncture auriculaire, Yves Rouxeville, Yunsan Méas et Jean Bossy, juillet 2007 -Le bouddhisme et la médecine traditionnelle de l'Inde, Sylvain Mazars, mars 2008 -Le silence de l'aiguille. Quand le Yi Jing éclaire les transformations induites par l'acupuncture, Michel Vinogradoff, octobre 2008 -Le visage en médecine traditionnelle chinoise. Hors pathologies orifi cielles et sensorielles, Bernard Cygler, 2009 -Diététique chinoise de la femme enceinte. De la gestation au post-partum, Marie-Emmanuelle Gatineaud, 2010 -La psychiatrie médiévale persane -La maladie mentale dans la tradition médicale persane, Bertrand Thierry de Crussol des Epesse, 2010 -Le diagnostic par les pouls en Chine et en France. Une histoire de la sphygmologie des origines au XVIII e diècle, Éric Marié, 2011 Autres ouvrages sur les médecines asiatiques aux Éditions Springer :

Background: Neuropathic pain (NP) is a complex disease that remains challenging to treat. Low-frequency dense-and-disperse (DD) electroacupuncture (EA) has been used as adjuvant therapy for neuropathic pain; however, its analgesic effect decreases as stimulation time increases, or when it is repeatedly used. We hypothesized that a new frequency parameter could improve the effectiveness of EA, and aimed to compare the efficacy and duration of the analgesic effect between classic DD-EA and non-repetitive and non-sequential frequency (random frequency (RF)-EA) in neuropathic rats. Furthermore, the effect of RF-EA at local traditional acupuncture point locations versus auricular vagus nerve stimulation (aVNS) was evaluated. Methods: Male Wistar rats with peripheral neuropathy were subjected to a single session of DD-EA or RF-EA for 20 or 40 min at ST36 + GB34. An additional group of rats was treated with RF-EA for 20 min using aVNS at the appropriate ear point locations. Paw pressure test, von Frey filaments and spontaneous pain scores were evaluated. Sham-operated rats were used as controls. Results: In all, 20 min of RF-EA reversed hyperalgesia (for 24 h) and allodynia (for 8 h), showing a longer analgesic effect than DD-EA. Both RF-EA and DD-EA induced partial inhibition of spontaneous pain for 8 h. Forty minutes of DD-EA did not interfere with the NP phenomena; however, RF-EA induced significant long-term analgesia. aVNS induced an analgesic effect similar to local stimulation. Conclusion: This pilot study shows that RF-EA at both local traditional acupuncture point and auriculotherapy point locations induces long-lasting analgesia in neuropathic rats, and more effectively so than classical DD-EA.