Cheong, Byung-Shik; Kim, Keon-Sik; Lee, Doo-Ik; Choi, Do-Young

Background : Central poststroke pain(CPSP) can occur as a result of lesion or dysfunction of the brain from stroke and may cause many difficulty in the social activities and daily life. In this study, we evaluate the clinical effectiveness of east-west medical management for CPSP through VAS(visual analogue scale), infrared themography, MBI(Moderfied Barthel Index) and Rankin scale. Methods : We treated thirty patients with oriental medical treatment method and western & oriental medical treatment method. Each group has fifteen patients of the CPSP. We evaluated their pain(characterizes tingling and burning sensation, aching, hyperalgesia, and allodynia) through VAS(visual analog scale) pain score, the skin temperature of pain site by infrared thermography and assessed their mobility & rehabilitation ability through MBI(Moderfied Barthel Index), Rankin scale before and after pain treatment. Results : The skin temperature of pain site was lower than non-pain site. The difference of skin temperature improved from to after oriental medical treatment and to after western & oriental medical treatment VAS scores improved from to after oriental medical treatment and to after western & oriental medical treatment. MBI scores improved from to after oriental medical treatment and to after western & oriental medical treatment. And Rankin scale scores improved from to after oriental medical treatment and to after western & oriental medical treatment Conclusion : The difference of skin temperature and Rankin scale scores more significantly improved after western & oriental medical treatment than oriental medical treatment. According to the results, we thought east-west medical management is very useful treatment for CPSP and rehabilitation of the patients with stroke

Central poststroke pain; VAS; Infrared thermography; MBI; Rankin scale

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.