Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

An Expert System for Supporting Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis and Treatment

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 16; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.protcy.2014.10.169

2212-0173

Paulo Silva, Pedro Gago, José Ribeiro, Manuel Filipe Santos, Filipe Portela, António Abelha, José Machado, Filipe Pinto,

Traditional Chinese Medicine Studies

Portugal has recently become one the few European countries to fully acknowledge Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM); this substantial paradigm shift calls for novel tools for TCM practitioners, students and patients alike. This paper describes an Expert System for supporting the TCM consultation process – both in terms of gathering and managing the patients' personal and symptomatic data, and of obtaining accurate diagnoses and treatments under regulated and reviewed protocols. The proposed tool was designed and is being developed with the support of two TCM therapists, which act as experts and provide aid to the processes of building the knowledge base and the automatic diagnosis system. In terms of architecture, the current version of the framework includes a mobile client application for the Android platform, integrated with an online spreadsheet. A survey was conducted in order to assess some of the needs of the community of TCM practitioners, and allowed gathering information on their needs.