抄録
Chinese medicine or oriental medicine such as acupuncture and moxibustion therapy and manipulative treatment is in widespread use in the context of health trend or stressful social setting. Recently, hospitals has started to employ these treatments. Especially, acupressure of planta pedis is used for bedridden patients since it is generally safe and easy procedure. However, its effect is not necessarily clear except for the patient's gratitude, and many medical personnel wants to know the physiological effects of acupressure. We investigated heart rate variation, pulse wave transit time before, during, and after the acupressure of planta pedis. Subjects were 10 undergraduate students. They were in face-up position, and finger pressure was applied on three acupressure points (Yu-sen, Soku-shin, Shitu-min) for 5 minutes each foot. Results showed that heart rates increased in 7 out of 10 subjects and cardiac entropy similarly increased. The acupressure leads to the abundance of heart rate fluctuation, which means “better” condition of the heart and circulation. Changes of autonomic nervous activity will be also reported.
