Traditional Chinese Medicine is a medical system whose roots go back more than 2,000 years and whose methods are being used increasingly throughout the world today. It complements modern conventional medicine in areas that have been pushed aside in the debate around the natural sciences:
These are mainly the areas of
- Prevention of illness,
- help for self-help (Chinese: yang sheng)
- gentle treatment of illness that takes the whole organism into account, and
- healing/regeneration following an illness.
In this approach, people are regarded as an independent, ever-developing unity of body, mind and spirit, and as part of larger systems such as family, society and environment.
The main treatment methods of TCM are:
- Herbal medicine ("herbal therapy")
- Acupuncture
- Acupressure/Tuina
- Breathing exercises/Qigong
- Advice on nutrition, exercise and daily lifestyle organisation
The diagnostic methods we use to distinguish between the different individual ‘patterns’ of a condition in patients, and thus to devise an appropriate treatment plan, include a detailed consultation, examining the tongue, and checking the pulse and the abdomen.
Links:
SACAM (Swiss Medical Society for Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine and Auriculomedicine (ear acupuncture))
TCM Professional Association Switzerland