[Objective]There are few reports of inpatients who received acupuncture treatment in departments of internal medicine in Japan. The aim of this analysis is to clarify such information by reviewing patients who received acupuncture treatment during admission to our department of internal medicine at Gifu University Hospital. Our department is organized into three subdepartments of cardiology, respirology, and nephrology.
[Methods]We surveyed the chief complaint for acupuncture treatment, basic disease for admission and the number and period of acupuncture treatment of inpatients who received acupuncture treatment in our department from July 2004 through March 2007.
[Results]Two hundred and sixty-six patients received acupuncture treatment and they had 429 symptoms.
The chief complaint was the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer treatment (n = 84), that is, nausea, anorexia, dysethesia and so on. Other symptoms were dyspnea or shortness of breath (n = 49), pain originating from cancer (n = 38), pain originating from skeletal muscle (n = 38), anorexia (n = 25), and general fatigue (n = 18). Several symptoms were cough, edema, constipation or diarrhea, conscious disturbance, insomnia, paralysis, etc.
Of the chief complaints, 86.4%were closely connected with diseases or treatments for admission.
The mean number of patients who received acupuncture was 10.0/day. This was equal to about 20%of all patients (53beds) per day in our department.
[Conclusion]There were many patients whose chief complaints for acupuncture were closely connected with disease for admission. It is suggested that acupuncture treatment is accepted as one of treatments of internal medicine for inpatients in our department.