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The definition and diagnosis of cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet: Finding from the experts survey.

ABSTRACT: Background:Cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet (CHHF) is a symptom patients usually feel cold in their hands and feet, but not dealt with a disease in western medicine. However, it is often appealed by patients at a clinic of Korean medicine (KM), considered to be a sort of key diagnostic indicator, and actively treated by physicians. Nevertheless, there is no standardized diagnostic definition for CHHF. Therefore, we surveyed KM experts' opinions to address the clinical definition, diagnostic criteria, and other relevant things on CHHF. Methods:We developed a survey to assess the definition, diagnosis, causes, and accompanying symptoms on CHHF. 31 experts who work at specialized university hospitals affiliated with KM hospitals consented to participation. Experts responded to survey questions by selecting multiple-choice answers or stating their opinions. Results:Vast majority of experts (83.8%) agreed with our definition on CHHF ("a feeling of cold as a symptom; that one's hands or feet become colder than those of average people in temperatures that are not normally perceived as cold"). 77.4% of experts considered subjective symptoms on CHHF were more important than medical instrument results. Constitution or genetic factors (87.1%) and stress (64.5%) were the most common causes reported for CHHF. Conclusions:This study offers an expert consensus regarding the themes, opinions, and experiences of practitioners with CHHF. Our results underscore the need for standardized definitions and diagnostic criteria for CHHF.

SUBMITTER: Bae KH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5884007 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The definition and diagnosis of cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet: Finding from the experts survey.

Bae Kwang-Ho KH Jeong Young-Seok YS Go Ho-Yeon HY Sun Seung-Ho SH Kim Tae-Hoon TH Jung Ki-Yong KY Song Yun-Kyung YK Ko Seong-Gyu SG Choi You-Kyung YK Park Jong-Hyeong JH Lee Siwoo S Lee Youngseop Y Jeon Chan-Yong CY

Integrative medicine research 20171116 1

<h4>Background</h4>Cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet (CHHF) is a symptom patients usually feel cold in their hands and feet, but not dealt with a disease in western medicine. However, it is often appealed by patients at a clinic of Korean medicine (KM), considered to be a sort of key diagnostic indicator, and actively treated by physicians. Nevertheless, there is no standardized diagnostic definition for CHHF. Therefore, we surveyed KM experts' opinions to address the clinical definiti ...[more]

PMID: 29629292

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Project description:Background:The Windover mortuary pond dates to the Early Archaic period (6,800-5,200 years ago) and constitutes one of the earliest archaeological sites with intact and well-preserved human remains in North America. Unlike many prehistoric egalitarian hunter-gatherers, the Windover people may not have practiced a sex-based division of labor; rather, they may have shared the load. We explore how mobility and subsistence, as reconstructed from archaeological data, influenced hand and foot bone morphology at Windover. Methods:We took length and width measurements on four carpal bones, four tarsal bones, and load-bearing tarsal areas (calcaneus load arm, trochlea of the talus). We analyzed lateralization using side differences in raw length and width measurements. For other hypothesis testing, we used log transformed length-width ratios to mitigate the confounding effects of sexual dimorphism and trait size variation; we tested between-sex differences in weight-bearing (rear foot) and shock-absorbing (mid foot) tarsal bones and between-sex differences in carpal bones. Results:We identified no significant between-sex differences in rear and midfoot areas, suggesting similar biomechanical stresses. We identified no significant between-sex differences in carpal bones but the test was under-powered due to small sample sizes. Finally, despite widespread behavioral evidence on contemporary populations for human hand and foot lateralization, we found no evidence of either handedness or footedness. Discussion:The lack evidence for footedness was expected due its minimal impact on walking gait but the lack of evidence for handedness was surprising given that ethnographic studies have shown strong handedness in hunter-gatherers during tool and goods manufacture. The reconstructed activity patterns suggested both sexes engaged in heavy load carrying and a shared division of labor. Our results support previous findings-both sexes had stronger weight-bearing bones. Male shock-absorbing bones exhibited a trend towards greater relative width (suggesting greater comparative biomechanical stress) than females which may reflect the typical pattern of male hunter-gatherers engaging in walking greater distances at higher speeds than females. While there were no significant between-sex differences in carpal bones (supporting a shared work load model), females exhibited greater variation in index values, which may reflect a greater variety of and specialization in tasks compared to males. Because carpals and tarsals are so well-preserved at archaeological sites, we had surmised they might be useful proxies for activity in the absence of well-preserved long bones. Tarsals provide a stronger signal of past activity and may be useful in the absence of, or in addition to, preferred bones. Carpals, however, may not be useful as the effect size of biomechanical stress (in this study at least) is low and would require larger samples than may be possible at archaeological sites.

Project description:To execute the intended movement, the brain directs attention, called body-specific attention, to the body to obtain information useful for movement. Body-specific attention to the hands has been examined but not to the feet. We aimed to confirm the existence of body-specific attention to the hands and feet, and examine its relation to motor and sensory functions from a behavioral perspective. The study included two groups of 27 right-handed and right-footed healthy adults, respectively. Visual detection tasks were used to measure body-specific attention. We measured reaction times to visual stimuli on or off the self-body and calculated the index of body-specific attention score to subtract the reaction time on self-body from that off one. Participants were classified into low and high attention groups based on each left and right body-specific attention index. For motor functions, Experiment 1 comprised handgrip strength and ball-rotation tasks for the hands, and Experiment 2 comprised toe grip strength involved in postural control for the feet. For sensory functions, the tactile thresholds of the hands and feet were measured. The results showed that, in both hands, the reaction time to visual stimuli on the hand was significantly lesser than that offhand. In the foot, this facilitation effect was observed in the right foot but not the left, which showed the correlation between body-specific attention and the normalized toe gripping force, suggesting that body-specific attention affected postural control. In the hand, the number of rotations of the ball was higher in the high than in the low attention group, regardless of the elaboration exercise difficulty or the left or right hand. However, this relation was not observed in the handgripping task. Thus, body-specific attention to the hand is an important component of elaborate movements. The tactile threshold was higher in the high than in the low attention group, regardless of the side in hand and foot. The results suggested that more body-specific attention is directed to the limbs with lower tactile abilities, supporting the sensory information reaching the brain. Therefore, we suggested that body-specific attention regulates the sensory information to help motor control.

Dataset Information

The definition and diagnosis of cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet: Finding from the experts survey.

Publications

The definition and diagnosis of cold hypersensitivity in the hands and feet: Finding from the experts survey.

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