Treatment with Kampo Medicine for Pain in Rehabilitation Medicine

The control of pain is one of the main concerns in rehabilitation medicine. Persistent pains often disturb the progress of rehabilitation programs. In order to cope with this problem, many physicians have chosen to prescribe modern medicines. However, the widespread fear of adverse effects of medicines that have not undergone extensive testing has decreased patient compliance with prescriptions for such drugs. Kampo medicines are well known for having fewer adverse effects, and many patients have asked physicians to prescribe Kampo instead of modern medicines. I have experienced many cases treated with a combination of Kampo and modern medicines since 1976, when Japanese health insurance began to cover Kampo extracts. I have treated the following conditions with Kampo medicines: neck-shoulder-arm syndrome, shoulder-hand syndrome in stroke patients, and numbness in spinal cord injuries. The combination of Kampo medicines, modern medicines and physical agents was evaluated in the clinic. The results of this study show that Kampo medicines accompanying other agents were superior to modern medicines alone with respect to the alleviation of persistent pains.