Yingping Fei
West China Hospital of Sichuan University, China
Title: Efficacy of lifestyle counseling based on traditional chinese medicine in patients with intractable dizziness: retrospective medical record review in a China hospital
Biography
Biography: Yingping Fei
Abstract
Background & Aim: Intractable dizziness is a common complaint encountered in the clinic and the impact of it on the quality of life is profound. Many of the patients seek alternative medicine treatments. Evidence in the literature supports the use of Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture and Tai Chi in people with vestibular pathology. However, the effect of lifestyle adjustment guided by traditional Chinese medicine in dizziness patients has not been previously studied. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of lifestyle counseling based on traditional Chinese medicine in patients with intractable dizziness and changes in related problems, including sleep disorders and emotional states.
Method: We reviewed the registry for dizziness patients in a dizziness specialist clinic of a tertiary referral center hospital in southwest China and included 157 adult patients with a chief complaint of intractable dizziness from January to August 2018. The lifestyle counseling includes psychological intervention, sleep hygiene and vegan dietary. Assessments of lifestyle were
performed using a lifestyle questionnaire designed by our laboratory, which mainly investigated sleep, diet and emotional states. The subjects were divided into an effective group and ineffective group depending on the improvement of dizziness symptoms in medical records.
Result: After 15 days of short-term lifestyle adjustments based on TCM, 72% (113/157) of the subjects showed improvement in their dizziness symptom. Compared with effective group, ineffective group patients were more likely to have coexisting diseases (P=0.01). After the lifestyle counseling intervention, patients self-reported poor sleep quality (Z=-4.07, P<0.01), difficulty
falling asleep (Z=-2.52, P<0.01), daytime sleepiness (Z=-3.13, P=0.02) and number of times of awakening (Z=-3.51, P<0.01) showed improvement in effective group, while in the ineffective group only the number of times of awakening improved at the second visit. Furthermore, the overall emotional stress and worry about illness were alleviated in all patients after the counseling.
Conclusion: The lifestyle guided by traditional Chinese medicine could alleviate dizziness symptom and related sleep disorders and emotional states. Physicians caring for intractable dizziness patients should pay more attention to their patients’ lifestyle.