Assessment and future development of the WHO/WPRO standardization of acupuncture point locations - Questionnaire survey to teachers at Japanese universities, colleges, vocational schools, and training centers for anma-massage-shiatsu, acupuncture and moxibustion therapies -

[Objective] In 2006 the WHO/WPRO agreed on standard acupuncture point locations. To promote these standards, in 2009 the Second Japan Acupuncture Standardization Committee published a Japanese edition of "WHO STANDARD ACUPUNCTURE POINT LOCATIONS FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC REGION ". Based on this Japanese edition, a new textbook was published by the Japan Association of Massage & Acupuncture Teachers and the Japan College Association of Oriental Medicine. One year has passed since the start of education based on standard meridian point locations at Japanese universities, colleges, vocational schools and training centers for anma (Japanese traditional massage), massage, and shiatsu (acupressure), acupuncture and moxibustion therapies. In this survey, we administered a questionnaire as an evaluation of international standardization and the problems of introducing standard meridian point locations. [Subjects and methods] Subjects were mainly teachers and a small number of researchers, clinicians, and other groups concerned with acupuncture and moxibustion. We used the questionnaire that we originally created by the Working Group of the Japan Standardization of Acupuncture Point Locations Committee between in Oct. 2010 and in Feb. 2011. [Results] Among the 180 institutions surveyed, we obtained answers from 149 people from 93 institutions. Agreement on the question of standard meridian points, "functional existence" (44.3%) was most common, and "anatomical existence" came next at 26.6%. As for the question on acupuncture treatment, 82.4% replied with "use of both meridian points and reactive points". As for issue of agreement with international standardization, "no comment" was 41.7% and 51.7% for "agreement". However, both of those groups appreciated the necessity of globalization of acupuncture and moxibustion expressed in a common language. There were many differing opinions about proportional bone measurement. Specifically, opinions indicated a change "from the elbow crease to the wrist crease" (from 10 B-cun to 12 B-cun) and a need for proportional bone measurement of the upper arm. Whereas, for each meridian point, opinions expressed the difficulty of locating the newly defined meridian points and not understanding reasons for changes and notations including body surface landmarks. [Discussion] We were able to classify the opinions collected into the following groups: (1) problems that can be corrected immediately, including typographic errors, (2) problems that need to be reviewed at the next international gathering, and (3) problems that need to be investigated by making full use of related documents. [Conclusion] We were able to gather data from a wide range of teachers, revealing problems understanding individual meridian point locations, including consideration of changes in meridian point locations, evaluation of standardization of meridian point locations, and other guidelines.