Pattern identification

Identification of disease patterns. Pattern identification is the process by which information gathered through four examinations (inspection, smelling and listening, inquiry, and palpation) is classified into different patterns, i.e., conditions conceived in terms of the location of the morbidity (body part, organ, and/or qì, blood, yīn, or yáng), causative evil, and relative state of right and evil.

Examples of patterns: lung qì vacuity; liver-kidney yīn vacuity; intense heart fire; damp-heat brewing in the spleen; qì stagnation.

The simplest form of pattern identification, which in modern education in China forms the first stage of diagnosis, is eight-principle pattern identification, which involves classifying four-examination data as interior exterior, cold or heat, vacuity or repletion, and yīn or yáng. Depending on the results obtained, other pattern identification procedures are applied. See entries listed below. See also identifying patterns and determining treatment.