Palpation
Palpation,
or touching, is a form of diagnosis made by feeling and
tapping local areas of the body to ascertain:
- Painful
areas
- Temperature
of the skin (heat, cold)
- Swelling
- Perspiration
- Color
Pulse
Diagnosis:
Pulse
diagnosis, as it applies to Traditional Chinese Medicine,
is the most important form of palpation, and is very different
from that of Western physicians.
In performing
pulse palpation, the practitioner places the index, middle,
and ring fingers on the radial artery. Three degrees of
pressure, the light touch, the medium touch, and the heavy
touch are applied to the region and correspond to the upper,
middle, and lower areas of the body.
In traditional
terms, there are 28 pulse classifications, which describe
the way the pulse feels to the fingertip. Some examples
of these classifications are:
- Slippery
-
feels like a rolling pearl in a basin, very fluid and
full
- Choppy
- has no strength and is irregular
- Full
- large and rounded, can be felt at all levels
- Empty
- hard to detect or felt only slightly at the superficial
level when pressure is applied
- Slow
- slower than the normal rate of four to five beats per
breath
- Rapid
- six to seven beats per breath
- Superficial
- easily felt on the skin surface
- Deep
- only felt with a heavy touch
These,
along with 20 other descriptions, must be taken into consideration
during pulse diagnosis. This requires a tremendous amount
of skill and practice, and when properly executed is one
of the most important and accurate means of correctly diagnosing
a patient. In fact, pulse and tongue diagnosis are considered
to be the "two pillars" of the four examinations
in traditional practice.
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