New Abdominal Acupuncture: Description With Clinical Examples

A number of well-known acupuncture microsystems are used in contemporary clinical practice including the auricular acupuncture system of Nogier, the scalp acupuncture system of Yamamoto, and the hand acupuncture system of Yoo. These microsystems are based on the discovery of a somatotopic relationship of a particular body area to functional areas of the cerebral cortex. Zhiyun Bo introduced an abdominal acupuncture microsystem in 1991 and published the first text on this microsystem in 1999. Accurate localization of acupuncture points on any of these microsystems in clinical practice can be difficult. A novel technique to rapidly and accurately localize microsystem acupoints via stimulation of those points with low-level laser energy is described herein. This technique can be used with any acupuncture microsystem and when applied to the abdominal acupuncture microsystem, is termed the New Abdominal Acupuncture (NAAP). NAAP produces rapid clinical improvements with durable results; clinical examples of this technique are presented.