Building a Fuzzy System for Pulse Based Disease Diagnosis and Acupuncture Therapy

Abstract

Pulse-based disease diagnosis and acupuncture therapy are the key components of traditional Oriental medicine. This study aims to model the thinking of medical doctors with regard to their use of pulse-based diagnosis and acupuncture therapy. This paper focuses on a fuzzy inference and knowledge base, which are the main components of the system for pulse based disease diagnosis and acupuncture therapy. The input of the system is the pulse symptoms of the patient with fuzzy degrees, whereas the output is the disease diagnosis and acupuncture therapy prescription. In this system, the knowledge base consists of nearly 1,200 rules for diagnosis and treatment. An evaluation of a group of traditional medical doctors indicates that the results of the newly proposed system are in good accordance with those of doctors practicing traditional medicine. This approach leads to better results than previous approaches because it uses fuzzy logic, which is an appropriate tool here because most entities in traditional medicine are fuzzy in nature. The system of pulse-based disease diagnosis and acupuncture therapy can mimic the thinking of traditional practitioners, and it can be a “good teacher” for medical students who want to learn traditional Vietnamese medicine.