Acupuncturist Liguori: “Modern and traditional Chinese can be integrated”

“Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can certainly be integrated with modern medicine. TCM is a complex system: in addition to acupuncture, it has other branches such as traditional massage and mobilizations for the treatment of herniated discs, for example, herbal medicine, dietetics for obesity and so on”. This is how Aldo Liguori, vice president of the World Federation of Acupuncture Associations, an NGO of the World Health Organization, which brings together over 250 societies around the world, explains to Adnkronos that “the main difference lies in the fact that modern medicine deals with the treatment of diseases, while TCM deals with strengthening the body as a whole and according to the individual characteristics of the patient, in the belief that, if the person is strong, the diseases will be brief and not serious”.

The possibility of combining the two medicines “is absolutely the key, a strategic response to the demand for health in this millennium, with interesting implications also for public health because the combination could allow for significant savings – underlines Liguori – There is a growing interest in people towards traditional Chinese medicine, both for preventive and curative purposes. Basically, people have understood that health is linked to components of movement, nutrition and therefore they are approaching TCM. Women, in particular, have been a great driving force behind this phenomenon”. In this context, “general practitioners have been of great help because they have realised the validity of these techniques and so, when people’s requests for research into these methods have come forward, they have recommended TCM. The number of users is also growing because in public clinics there are starting to be “dedicated” facilities, “such as for example at Sant’Andrea in Rome”.

Thanks to the cooperation of 8 national associations, “a training course has been opened” for a weekend, the last one is scheduled for September 28-29 in Rome, “to learn abdominal acupuncture which – Liguori recalls – is a system of acupuncture very close to the doctor’s mindset: the diagnosis used is the same as modern medicine and applies well-defined protocols for diseases”. Furthermore, “in October the Paracelsus Institute invited to Rome Professor Bo Zhi Yun, inventor of the abdominal acupuncture method, who will give a practical demonstration on Tuesday October 10 at 2 pm at the Sant’Andrea hospital, second Faculty of Medicine of Sapienza University, where – he concludes – there is a public acupuncture clinic”.