The advantages and characteristics of Chinese medicine in stroke diseases

  Neurointerventional techniques provide solutions for numerous cerebrovascular diseases, but as an invasive endovascular technique, it still has its inherent deficiencies and defects. During its operation, there is a risk of causing damage to the vessel wall, occlusion of the penetrating artery, or formation of thrombus with secondary complications such as cerebral infarction or cerebral vasospasm. There is still a certain incidence of restenosis after endovascular stenting, especially the rate of in-stent restenosis in intracranial vessels reaches more than 30%. In the endovascular treatment of ischemic cerebral vessels, reperfusion injury of the brain may occur after vascular balloon dilation and stent placement as well as arterial thrombolysis, which is also one of the hot spots of research. What is more important is that the main purpose of neurointerventional techniques is to prevent the occurrence of another stroke without any significant benefit to the organismal blow caused by the current stroke. For example, in the diagnosis and treatment of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, the incidence of complications such as cerebral vasospasm, secondary cerebral infarction, hydrocephalus, cerebrocardiac syndrome, and neurogenic pulmonary edema caused by subarachnoid hemorrhage is also high, and these are serious threats to patients’ lives, which are still in the stage of recognition by modern medicine and there are no good solutions yet. In contrast, Chinese medicine has a long history and experience in treating stroke. The basic feature is to grasp the condition from the whole and then to treat it with evidence. The Nei Jing initially proposed the etiology and pathogenesis of stroke that we outline today, including “wind”, “fire”, “phlegm”, “qi” and “stasis”. “The Nei Jing initially proposed the pathogenesis of stroke as we know it today. Later medical practitioners have also discussed and expressed it from different perspectives.  At present, there is basically a consensus on the pathogenesis of stroke: 1. The location of the disease is in the brain and is closely related to the heart, liver and kidney.  2, the nature of the pathology of the acute phase with the majority of real evidence, the recovery period more deficiency mixed with real.  3, the most common triggering factors for the internal injury of emotion. Wind (liver wind), fire (heart fire, liver fire), phlegm and stasis are important pathological factors, which often interact with each other and influence each other as cause and effect.  4, the disease is rapid, complex and variable, the acute phase of the heart and liver are both sick, recovery period of liver, spleen and kidney damage. If there are serious complications, it can lead to the defeat of the brain’s spirit, coma and even death. The etiology of the disease has been discussed in the Nei Jing, which states that diet, emotions and other factors are related to the development of stroke.  In terms of specific treatment methods, there are a variety of drugs, and the common methods are: 1. Internal tonics: with the characteristics of strong target, flexible changes in dosage, rapid onset of action, and significant efficacy, can be identified for different patients, different pathological stages, different complications, and flexible formulae, and is currently the most widely used in clinical practice. For example, antelope and hooked vine soup, tianma and hooked vine drink, half summer and white atractylodes tianma soup, liver quenching and wind quenching soup, tonic yang and five soup and other classic prescriptions.  2, internal medicine: Chinese medicine has a long history of treating stroke, and has accumulated rich experience. Modern Chinese medicine can greatly improve the efficacy of prescriptions and reduce toxic side effects through scientific proportioning and processing of modern technology, and is easy to take, with significant efficacy and stable drug composition.  3.Static injection: With the acceleration of the modernization of Chinese medicine process, the level of new drug preparation technology continues to improve, in recent years, many new development of the treatment of stroke injection, these drugs in Chinese medicine theory under the guidance of the effect, the efficacy of the exact, greatly improve the emergency ability of Chinese medicine, suitable for the acute treatment, such as Qingkai Ling, wake up the brain static, Danshen, Lanjianhua vegetation, ginseng, ginseng wheat, raw pulse and other injections.  4, external plaster: for the patient’s condition to form a formula, boil the plaster applied externally to the affected limbs, this method not only add or subtract changes flexibly, and make the drug directly to the disease, the curative effect is very good, such as a branch of plum.  5, acupuncture therapy: this method is applicable to the treatment of all stages of stroke, the acute stage of acupuncture can open the body and awaken the mind, the recovery period can promote functional recovery, for the common complications after the stroke, such as erratic, swallowing difficulties, etc. also has a good effect. Moreover, acupuncture treatment for stroke is almost independent of time and place, and can be performed flexibly anytime and anywhere, and is inexpensive, which makes it popular among stroke patients.  Stroke is a very dangerous disease of the elderly, its mortality rate, disability rate, recurrence rate are very high, single therapy are limited, if the Chinese medicine, Western medicine, acupuncture, functional rehabilitation and other therapies can be combined organically, the efficacy will be better. Professor Ling Feng, a leading figure in domestic neurological interventions, also lamented that the current domestic neurological industry is confusing in terms of disease classification and division, and there is a “battle for the field” between multiple disciplines. All these will seriously restrict the healthy development of neurology in China. He also called for the establishment of a “consortium” that includes neurosurgery, neurology, neuroimaging, emergency medicine, and close cooperation between Chinese and Western medicine, so that patients can truly receive safe, minimally invasive, reliable and effective medical services.