Quantitative analyses of pulse images in traditional Chinese medicine

This paper reviews recent achievements in quantitative analyses of modern research on Traditional Chinese Pulse Diagnosis (TCPD). In order to demystify TCPD and prove its efficiency, some fundamental knowledge such as concepts, diagnosis methods, and standard pulse patterns are discussed. We review the modern research on TCPD mainly from 4 aspects: objectification of TCPD, analyses of pulse waveform, research into the mechanism of pulse formation, clinic observations, and comparisons on pulse images. For each of these aspects, general background information and a brief explanation on them are given. It is especially important to distinguish the pulse images based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the sphygmogram based on Western medicine. Our pulse acquisition system is presented as an example. Furthermore, typical pulse waveforms in our pulse database and their results processed by modern signal processing methods such as cepstrum, short-time Fourier transforms (STFT), and wavelet transform are demonstrated. Finally, the prosperities and difficulties of modern research on TCPD are pointed out.