Abstract
Though palpation has long been one of major medical examinations in Oriental medicine, the evaluation of information gained from it depends so much on subjective judgement of each therapist that diagnosis by palpation are often inconsistent. From palpation, a therapist not only feels the hardness, stiffness or flatulence of the place he palpates, but also judges how the hardness of the same point changes as he pushes the body with his fingers. We modeled a bioelasticity system on therapists “pushing” action, in which hardness of the points with different depths in body can be measured. And we made experiments to see how the different “pushing” actions affect measurement. From statistical discussion on the results obtained through experiment, we decided the most reproducible and clinically useful way of “pushing.” In this study, we also tried to visualize the inner structure of the model in which jerry rings of different hardness are stratified.
