It is well known that the concept underlying oriental medicine is to approach the living body as a microcosm. The model currently used shows that all five basic elements are interrelated. Because only relative directions between the five basic elements are shown, these diagrams can not describe the whole. However, complex systems of the control theory in engineering using the current model remain complicated.In this study, we designed a new model to synthetically interpret the relations among the five basic elements that are used in complex systems. As a result, the new model can describe drastic changes in the creative cycle and the destructive cycle. Furthermore, the model can faithfully express whole changes of the five basic elements and simultaneously describe the relation of the creative cycle and the relation of the destructive cycle. It is suggested that the use of this new basic model may help explain the disease model and treatment theory.

It is generally known that oriental medicine is based on the concept of deficiency and excess to explain disease in a complex living system. However, a disease model based upon the expression of the relationship between the rhythm of the five basic elements and the living body's control system has not been proposed. Therefore, we investigated this relationship by modeling “Kyo-Ja” and “Jitsu-Ja” on abnormal rhythms of the five basic elements.
We constructed models that always reflect changes in the rhythm of the five basic elements to show that disease occurs by breaking these control systems. The present model suggests that treatments of disease should not only incorporate the characteristics of the five basic elements but should also consider the course of a disease and the patient's overall condition.

In oriental medicine, we consider the living body to be a microcosm and understand it as a general complex of systems. The rhythm of the five basic elements in the living body controls these complex systems and maintains the whole by adding restrictions to chaos. Therefore, when distortion of the five basic elements occurs, the living body develops disease. Under these conditions, the first, 69th chapter of “Nan Ching” describes the therapy principle useing the mother and child relationship of the creative cycle in the five basic elements, and the second describes the therapy principle of individual meridian diseases. Accordingly, we developed a therapy model for deficiency-pathogen, excess-pathogen and original-pathogen and tried to interpret the 69th chapter.
The results showed that there is no distortion in relationship of the destructive becoming successful condition of therapy in these models. In addition, it was thought that the original-pathogen is the therapy principle of individual meridian diseases, and these changes suggested the formation of assumptions regarding tonification and sedation therapy for deficiency-pathogen and excess-pathogen. These results suggest that the 69th chapter is a therapy principle based on the relationship of the creative cycle through the whole organism.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Seattle Angina Questionnaire, Japanese version (SAQ-J) as a disease-specific health outcome scale in patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS: Patients with coronary artery disease were recruited from a university hospital in Tokyo. The patients completed self-administered questionnaires, and medical information was obtained from the subjects' medical records. Face validity, concurrent validity evaluated using Short Form 36 (SF-36), known group differences, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 354 patients gave informed consent, and 331 of them responded (93.5%). The concurrent validity was mostly supported by the pattern of association between SAQ-J and SF-36. The patients without chest symptoms showed significantly higher SAQ-J scores than did the patients with chest symptoms in 4 domains. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .51 to .96, meaning that internal consistency was confirmed to a certain extent. The intraclass correlation coefficient of most domains was higher than the recommended value of 0.70. The weighted kappa ranged from .24 to .57, and it was greater than .4 for 14 of the 19 items. CONCLUSIONS: The SAQ-J could be a valid and reliable disease-specific scale in some part for measuring health outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease, and requires cautious use.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Coronary Vessels ; Humans ; Informed Consent ; Medical Records ; Reproducibility of Results ; Thorax ; Tokyo ; Surveys and Questionnaires