Matrix Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medicine Differential Diagnoses in Gulf War Illness

Abstract

This is the first published article that organizes and defines TCM differential diagnoses using Matrix Analysis; currently, there are no TCM frameworks for GWI. These findings are preliminary given the sample size and the amount of missing data at 6 months. Characterization of the TCM clinical presentation of veterans suffering from GWI may help us better understand the potential role that East Asian medicine may play in managing veterans with GWI and the design of effective acupuncture treatments based on TCM. The development of a TCM manual for treating GWI is merited.

Best Practices for Rater Agreement Research in Traditional Chinese Medicine: Uplifting Traditional Epistemologies

“…T he collection of articles by Jacobson et al 1 ; Schnyer et al 2 ; and Taylor-Swanson et al 3 demonstrates how the misapplication of Western biomedical positivist research concepts, methods, and principles, in an effort to understand, describe, and replicate the naturalistic diagnostic process in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has not resulted in advancing our understanding. Western statistical methods cannot account for, nor can they represent, the contextual, processual, and synchronistic features of the TCM diagnostic process as implemented by practitioners in the clinical encounter.…”

“…Raters in their study reported poor ecological validity for the researcher-designed data collection instrument because categories of analysis were gleaned from Diagnostic discernment: Stable ''roots'' (constitutional weakness/ disorder tendencies) may be more easily identified than transient ''branches'' (emergent/acute conditions). See Taylor-Swanson et al 3 and Kurande et al 7 Allow raters to use their accustomed modes of diagnostic reasoning Develop shared diagnostic reasoning-codified, consistently understood, and disseminated by the collegial community and/or institutional culture.…”