| Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS)) is one of the motor neural diseases, which selectively affects motor neurons in the anterior horn of spinal-cord, and the motor nuclei of brainstem and the pyramidal cells in the motor cortex of brain. Its main clinical symptoms include limb weakness, amyotrophic, twitching and cramping of muscles, disability in speaking and swallowing. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which is very difficult to cure and its prognosis is bad. At the present time there is no effective treatment method yet. So it is known as the incurable disease in neurology, and also is one of the research focuses in neurological field.The etiopathogenesis of the ALS is still not clear so far. There are many kinds of possible etiopathogenesis were proposed in recent years, including amino acid toxicity of excitability , hereditary gene , autoimmunity, and neural growth factor etc. ALS belongs to the " atrophic debilities" of Traditional Chinese Medicine according to its clinical symptom. There is abundant argumentation about the " atrophic debilities" in the literature of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Treated by TCM that based on the ancient argumentation about atrophic debilities and the interrelated theory have gain some curative effect which brings a gleam of hope for the ALS patients In recent years. My tutor, Professor Liu Youzhang following Professor Deng Tietao who is famous, outstanding and veteran in TCM, have sticked to the research of treating ALS with Chinese herbal medicine that based on the theory of TCM since middle period of the eighties. In the long-term clinical practice, he has accumulated alot experience in curing ALS. My tutor regards that the primary cause of ALS is weak-ness of both the spleen and the kidney and the secondary aspect of ALS is up-stiring of liver-wind, retention of phlegm and stagnation of the blood. So he regards that it is important to strengthen the speen and tonify the kidney and to calm the liver to stop the wind. If there is retention of phlegm and stagnation of the blood, dispersing phlegm and blood stasis and dredge collateral should be used at the same time. He has gain certain curative effect in clinic by using the therapeutics in the long-term clinical practice. The purpose of this research is to observe the effect and the safety of the therapeutics of strengthening the speen and tonifying the kidney and calming the liver to stop the wind on ALS, and to offer basis for summarizing and improving the result of treatment further.In the clinical research we collect 40 cases of ALS patients including the outpatients and inpatients in the first affiliated hospital of Guangzhou University of TCM, and treat them with Chinese herbal medicine of strengthening the speen and tonifying the kidney and calming the liver to stop the wind. The aim is to estimate the effect of the Chinese herbal medicine of strengthening the speen and tonifying the kidney and calming the liver to stop the wind by observing the changes of the scores about Amyotrophic Lateteral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale(ALSFRS) and the scores of main symptom after they were treated for three months. Through analyzing the scores change with medical statistic measure, we draw the conclusion : The scores of speech, salivation, swallowing, walking, climbing stairs, and turning in bed and adjusting bed clothes after treating is higher than before .The comparison have notable differences in statistic (P<0. 05) . And the scores of handwriting, cutting food and handling utensils, dressing and hygiene and breathing have no obvious differences in statistic (P>0.05) . The important result is the scores of the main symptoms such as twitching of muscle, swallowing and lingua muscle has reduced, evidently (P<0.05) . The others have no difference in statistic. In contrast to before treatment, the Blood RT, Urine RT, Stool RT and Function of Liver and Kidney have no change after treatment. The results above indicate that the therapy can improve the patients' function such as speech, salivation, swallowing, walking, climbing stairs, turning in bed and adjusting bed clothes and the symptom such as twitching...
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