Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a separate, complete and holistic medical system with unique diagnostic methods, classification of pathological conditions, methods and types of treatment and prevention of diseases.
The system of traditional Chinese medicine exists simultaneously with the system of Western medicine and is equivalent in importance to restoring or maintaining human health. Depending on the situation, these two medical systems can be mutually exclusive, interchangeable or complementary.
The peculiarity of TCM lies primarily in its approach to the human body, which it considers as an integral functional system that exists harmoniously with the environment. Traditional Chinese medicine explains emerging pathological processes as a violation of the physiological processes of the entire organism as a whole, and not as a pathology of individual organs.
Due to this view of the human body, TCM is fundamentally different from Western medicine in its classification of pathological conditions. The classification of pathological conditions in TCM consists of the names of syndromes that characterize certain changes in the body, and does not contain the names of specific diseases that are familiar to Western medicine. In view of this, whatever the diagnosis of Western medicine, by consulting a TCM doctor once, the patient gets the opportunity to treat and stabilize all the pathological processes that currently exist in the body, simultaneously and with one doctor. Of course, this is one of the undeniable and greatest advantages of the traditional Chinese medical system.
All TCM methods are one way or another aimed at restoring the disturbed balance in the body and are both therapeutic and increase the body’s ability to self-heal and self-defense. Since the combination of physiological disorders is individual for each patient, treatment with TCM methods is also exclusively individual in nature. When drawing up a prescription and prescribing a course of treatment, the TCM doctor takes into account many different factors: gender, age, living environment, season of the year, stage and history of the disease, emotional state of the patient, etc. The drug prescription is adjusted throughout the course of treatment depending on changes in the patient’s condition, which guarantees the greatest effectiveness of treatment. In addition to the TCM drug, depending on the pathological syndrome, the doctor also uses other treatment methods in combination or sequentially, such as acupuncture, catgut therapy, bloodletting, massages, manual therapy, general and local medicinal baths, Chinese therapeutic and preventive gymnastics, etc.
Combined with the methods of classical Western medicine, professional traditional Chinese medicine forms a comprehensive medical system - integrative medicine - medicine of the future.