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The World Health Organization (WHO) Based in Geneva, Switzerland, promote acupuncture as the recommended primary treatment for over 40 chronic ailments including such diverse conditions as arthritis and asthma.
Acupuncture's main use is in treating chronic and painful conditions such as arthritis, headaches and migraines. After tooth decay and the common cold, these are the most common afflictions of the human race. Its effectiveness has enabled acupuncture to survive against, at times, enormous odds. It was banned by law in China at the beginning of this century but continued to be practiced as folk medicine. Interest by Western doctors in acupuncture was stimulated by President Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Since that time, medical interest in the subject has grown apace, underpinned by a number of important discoveries pointing to the effectiveness of Acupuncture.
The ancient Chinese hypothesized that energy circulated in the body via specific channels, which they called meridians. They considered that the balance and transmission of this energy from side to side, top to bottom and from the inside to the outside of the body was of great importance. They expressed this idea using their doctrine of Yin and Yang, which considers that everything is an amalgam of opposites (the opposites being called Yin or Yang). Yang was associated with activity, fire, the sunny side of the hill or the male principle and Yin was associated with physical substance, water, the dark side of the hill or the female principle. The balance between these two opposites was considered to be constantly fluctuating, in other words it was a dynamic balance. If one was out of balance, in an energetic sense, the principle of treatment would be to re-establish that balance.
The Chinese had an essentially vitalistic approach to the body and its physiology in keeping with many ancient systems of medicine. It is interesting to reflect that modern Western medicine is the only such system ever to have existed without a vitalistic approach to health and disease.
The Chinese developed a highly complex and sophisticated system of empirical laws based on countless observations of illness and response to treatment. These laws resulted in a number of ground rules aimed at guiding a doctor to the improvement of his patient's condition. The astonishing fact is that the application of these apparently odd-sounding laws do appear to work in a highly significant proportion of people. It would be fair to say that if it did not work, acupuncture would not have been adopted within both Western and Eastern cultures to such a degree.
The Chinese believed that in addition to being in balance, the energy or life force (which they called chi) had to be able to circulate freely around the meridians. If a break occurred anywhere in this circulation, illness would result. An example is backache, which is viewed by the Chinese as a blockage in the 'chi' circulating in the bladder meridian. The remedy was, to put it in the simplest of terms, to insert a needle at the point of discomfort in order to encourage the flow to re-establish itself. Surprisingly enough, this relatively crude approach does work in a sufficient number of cases to create a curious, rather than passing interest.
Each meridian refers to a particular organ, and the energy flowing through that meridian can be taken as indicating the functional state of that organ. Inserting a needle into a point on the liver meridian for instance could be expected to affect the function of the liver, the effect would depend on the actual point used and the state of the patient at the time of treatment.
Traditional acupuncture involves the placing of needles into the body at various pre-determined points, depending on the ailment being treated. This is obviously an invasive process - and one which many people cannot bear to undergo.
The placing of the needles is highly critical. Modern research has shown that a typical treatment point is only 1/2 mm across (1/50 of an inch) and the level of skill required to locate such points is extremely high. Even a slight error of judgement means that the point may be missed and the subsequent treatment less effective.
Good accurate needle acupuncture can be over 85% effective. However, it is most effective when treatment can be given daily for a few weeks. High-quality, daily treatment is usually impractical for the vast majority of people due to time restraints and the high cost. In addition, as we mentioned before, many people are not happy with the thought of being punctured by needles on a daily basis.
This method is obviously much simpler and, being non-invasive is readily accepted by prospective users - they are totally at ease during treatment, which in itself is a contribution to the healing process.
HealthTouch has been designed to not only treat acupuncture points, but also - and in fact, most importantly - to locate the treatment points precisely and quickly. The result is that anyone can quickly and simply treat themselves accurately and obtain results equivalent to that obtained from the very best exponents of the art of traditional acupuncture.
The dark area at the bottom is the skin, and the white area is the region of intense electrical activity that is the centre of the point - this has the advantage of being highly conductive to electricity and the HealthTouch unit uses this fact to locate the treatment point.
Dr Kenyon also discovered that if you apply a highly specific electronic pulse to the point, the person being treated will experience a brief 'sensation' on the point, which is conclusive proof that the point has been accurately located. Even a tiny error in location will result in the sensation not being felt.
Once the point has been located, the unit is then designed to transmit a series of pulses to the point for around 30 seconds. During the treatment, there is no sensation.
