The Chinese systems of health maintenance focus on keeping health and treating illness through various techniques designed to rebalance qi in the context of natural forces and facilitate its flow within and through the body's organ systems via channels whose directional landmarks are indi-cated by the acupuncture and acupressure points on the body. Techniques of health maintenance and healing are believed to have spread with the Chinese culture and trade to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Indian subcontinent. In the United States a selection of systems has occurred based on those that appealed most in our culture. These are primarily acupuncture, massage, and herbal medicine. Acupuncture was reviewed briefly in Chapter 5.
Acupressure uses the principles of acupuncture but without the use of needles.
Fingertips or the hands of the therapist are used to stimulate selected acupoints using varying degrees of pressure as well as applying pressure with different movements. This forms the basis of a number of systems of manual therapy increasingly known in the U.S. such as shiatsu and jin shin jyutsu. These systems of manual treatment are used for health maintenance as well as for treatment of specific health problems. Moxibustion also uses acupuncture theories of practice and acupoints. Instead of needles or direct pressure, heat is applied to specific acupoints under the belief that intense, local heat helps the balance and flow of qi.