A Study on Correlation between BMI and Oriental Medical Pulse Diagnosis Using Ultrasonic Wave

Abstract

Pulse diagnosis refers to the process of diagnosing a patient by feeling an artery on the wrist based on the shape that the pulse takes while the hold-down pressure increase. Currently, the hucklebone artery on the wrist is usually felt, and the pulse is taken on Chon, Gwan and Cheok using three fingers. This study is to examine the structural difference in the location of pulse diagnosis by measuring and analyzing blood diameter, blood depth, and blood flow velocity of the location of pulse diagnosis by using ultrasonic wave (VOLUSION730 PRO, GE Medical, U.S.A).This study also attempted to grasp whether the characteristics of blood vessels differ depending on Body Mass Index (BMI) and analyzed their correlation with Oriental medical pulse diagnosis. The male subjects without cardiovascular diseases were divided into the normal BMI group, the underweight group, the overweight group and 10 people of each group were measured. Blood depth, blood diameter and blood flow velocity at the location of pulse diagnosis (Chon, Gwan, Cheok) of the wrists of left and right hands were measured and the pulse wave was measured by using pulse diagnosis instrument (3-D Mac, DaeyoMedi, Korea).The results of this study showed that the characteristics of blood vessels differ depending on the degree of obesity, and the characteristics of floating pulse and sinking pulse of Oriental medical pulses were related to the degree of obesity. This shows that the characteristics of the blood vessels of subjects and BMI information are the major indicators for diagnosis and are the matters that must always be considered when developing the algorism of pulse diagnosis. © 2009 International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering.