Inside Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture the first, herbal medicine the second, moxibustion and acupressure are four major branches of treatment modality. Most of the time, their treatment is based on the meridian, eight principals, and other theories. Other time, like acupuncture, moxibustion, and acupressure, they are based on trigger point/response point plus the previous theories. Therefore the treatment modality can be multiple. In regard to the nerve system or musculoskeletal system conditions, the treatments can be overlapping with western medicine.
In China, this overlapping would not create any problem as Chinese government promotes integrative medicine. Doctors are trained in both Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine. There is not much conflict of turf-fight. Even Western Medicine learns from Chinese Medicine, they normally would not perform if they feel they have not been fully trained. Also, the market can easily decide that as patients understand where they go to seek treatment.
However, in US, this can be different dramatically. First, the Western Medicine dominates healthcare. Most of the treatment is also covered by insurance. As a grandfather law, Doctors enjoy the right to perform Chinese Medicine because they are the one can effectively block the introduction of Chinese Medicine into US. However, with the time going by for the past forty years, Chinese Medicine, especially acupuncture is becoming more popular effective healing method. Other groups in the healthcare system want to have a claim in the market. Therefore, we can see the chaos in current healthcare as Physical Therapy claims they can do dry needling even with their training rein from an acupuncturist publication(Modern acupuncture). Acupuncture points and dry needling points are over 95% overlapping. It is like renaming of the system. Suddenly there are so many people saying they can do DN. Problem is patient’s safety. Most of the states have no clear definition of how many hours of training needed. It would take several years before this chaos is settled down.
Following are related papers:
American Society of Acupuncturists Position on Dry Needling _9_14_16
Dry Needling Facts- AAPAS Dry Needling White Paper (I)
Dry Needling Facts- AAPAS Dry Needling White Paper (II)
Dry Needling Facts- AAPAS Dry Needling White Paper (III)
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