Treatment by Differentiation of Syndromes

The term differentiation
means comprehensive analysis. While the term syndrome
refers to signs and symptoms. So differentiation of syndromes implies
that the patient's symptoms and signs collected by the diagnostic methods in Chinese medicine are analyzed and
summarized to identify the etiology, nature,
and location of a disease. thereby determining what
syndrome the disease belongs to. The term treatment refers to
selecting the corresponding therapy according to the outcome
of differentiating the syndromes. Taken as a whole, treatment by differentiation of
syndromes means diagnosis and treatment based on the overall analysis
of signs and symptoms. Concerning the relationship
between disease and treatment, Chinese medicine can show two
different categorical clinical manifestations based on the system of
treatment by differentiation of syndromes. The first category is treating the same
disease with different therapies. For example, influenza,
from a Chinese medicine perspective, may be caused by a variety
of different pathogens. Some common terms to describe
these pathogens are, wind-cold, wind-heat or summer-heat. These syndromes, may also show signs
of another pathogen, known as damp. Because there is more than one
possibility of a diagnosis, the treatment approach can vary. This includes dispersing wind-cold,
eliminating wind-heat, clearing away summer-heat,
and dispelling dampness. The second category is based on treating
different diseases with the same therapy. To elaborate, even though
a disorder may have two different biomedicine disease diagnoses,
if the Chinese medical pathology is the same,
then the treatment will be the same. For example, ischemic stroke and
myocardial infarction can occur due to various reasons
from a biomedicine perspective. However, according to
the principles of Chinese medicine, even though the biomedicine
diagnosis may be different, If the ischemic stroke and
myocardial infarction is caused by the Chinese medical
syndrome known as blood stasis, then the treatment method of
removing blood stasis will be used.