A man gets his pulse and complexion checked. Photos: CFP

When 66-year-old Xi Lipin recently went to a community hospital in Pudong New Area for a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment, the exam went off without a hitch.

Like always, she opened her mouth so her tongue could be examined and held out her wrist so her pulse could be taken. Twenty minutes later, she received a printout with her symptoms and suggested treatment.

The examination was similar to every other TCM examination Xi has ever gotten, except this time it was done by a computer.

The computer, called the Household Digital TCM - Four Diagnostic Apparatus, can handle most basic forms of TCM examination. Since last month, it has been used to help doctors diagnose patients at Shanggang Community Health Service Center in Pudong.

The machine demonstrates the efforts that researchers are putting into making TCM more scientific and more in line with mainstream medical care around the world. The hope is that the machine will help promote TCM, which lacks credibility outside of East Asia and is considered alternative medicine in the West due to the dearth of evidence about its efficacy.

"With the computer, we try to standardize and digitalize the TCM diagnosis process," said Wang Yiqing, a professor at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, who helped develop the machine. "It is the first step toward getting it accepted by more people, so we can promote it."

Digital diagnosis

This computer, which was also on display at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, has three main parts: a digital camera to scan patients' faces and tongues, a device for checking pulses, and a screen that asks patients 70 questions, primarily about their symptoms. After collecting the information, the computer will analyze the patients' answers and compare them to a database in order to make a diagnosis.

The system is designed to diagnose patients with the four main diagnostic methods of TCM - Wang, Wen, Wen and Qie (observation, listening to the sound of the patient's voice and the odor of their breath, inquiring about their symptoms and feeling their pulses).

TCM treats the body holistically. Practitioners believe that internal problems can be discerned in the complexion, voice, pulse and tongue texture. By analyzing these indicators, doctors can learn what is wrong with their patients.

"At first, it was just a curiosity," said the patient Xi. "But after experiencing it, I think the system is scientific. It acts like a normal TCM doctor, and the descriptions of the symptoms are quite accurate."

The accuracy of the systems depends on the database, which is a collection of years of TCM diagnoses. "We've collected more than 40,000 diagnoses, with each verified by at least two TCM experts," Wang said.

The machine is not designed to replace a doctor. "It's like an X-ray machine in Western medicine. It provides doctors with important information. But it cannot work alone."