Clinical Interventions in Aging Open Access Full Text Article Dovepress open access to scientific and medical research O R I G I N A L R E S E A R C H Elderly quality of life impacted by traditional chinese medicine techniques Helena A Figueira1,3,5 Olivia A Figueira2 Alan A Figueira1,4 Joana A Figueira1 Tania S Giani1,3,5 Estélio HM Dantas3,5 1ABACO/Sohaku-in Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 2IPEMED – Medical Research and Teaching Institute, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; 3LABIMH/ UNIRio – Laboratory of Biomedical Human Kinetics/Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 4UFF, Federal Fluminense University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 5REMH – Euroamerican Network of Human Kinetics, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Correspondence: Helena A Figueira Estrada do Rio Morto, 197 bloco 10 casa 107, Recreio dos Bandeirantes, Rio de Janeiro, ZIP 22783.210, Brazil Tel +55 21 7892 2264 Fax +55 21 2428 3528 Email helenafigueira@gmail.com Background: The shift in age structure is having a profound impact, suggesting that the aged should be consulted as reporters on the quality of their own lives. Objectives: The aim of this research was to establish the possible impact of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) techniques on the quality of life (QOL) of the elderly. Sample: Two non-selected, volunteer groups of Rio de Janeiro municipality inhabitants: a control group (36 individuals), not using TCM, and an experimental group (28 individuals), using TCM at ABACO/Sohaku-in Institute, Brazil. Methods: A questionnaire on elderly QOL devised by the World Health Organization, the WHOQOL-Old, was adopted and descriptive statistical techniques were used: mean and standard deviation. The Shapiro–Wilk test checked the normality of the distribution. Furthermore, based on its normality distribution for the intergroup comparison, the Student t test was applied to facets 2, 4, 5, 6, and total score, and the Mann–Whitney U rank test to facets 1 and 3, both tests aiming to analyze the P value between experimental and control groups. The significance level utilized was 95% (P , 0.05). Results: The experimental group reported the highest QOL for every facet and the total score. elderly Conclusions: The results suggest that TCM raises the level of QOL. Keywords: quality of life, traditional chinese medicine, east-west medicine, WHOQOL-Old, Introduction Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is among the most ancient living traditions,1 is used almost worldwide nowadays, as there has been a global increase in demand for its treatment. In countries where the dominant health care system is based on allopathic medicine, or where TCM has not been incorporated into the national health care system, TCM is often termed “complementary”, “alternative” or “non-conventional” medicine.2 Populational aging is bringing a greater incidence of chronic diseases, and TCM techniques offer the potential to deal with them.2 Traditional Chinese medicine, which is more than 2,500 years old,3 is practiced and taught in many health centers worldwide. In Brazil, some schools are traditional in this area, such as ABACO/Sohaku-in, which offers many techniques, including acupuncture, oriental massage, acupressure, herbal medicine, oriental dietetics, electro-acupuncture, and cranial acupuncture. Quality of life (QOL) is based on both objective circumstances and subjective evaluations. Its subjectivity can be supported by objective factors, such as accomplishing submit your manuscript | www.dovepress.com Dovepress DOI: 10.2147/CIA.S10615 Clinical Interventions in Aging 2010:5 301–305 © 2010 Figueira et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd.This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. 301