한약투여 및 식이, 운동지도를 통한 소아성장치료의 임상적 관찰

The Clinical Observation on the Growth of Children Treated with Korean Herbal Medicine, Diet and Exercise Guidance

Objectives : The aim of this study was to observe and analysis the effectiveness of clinical treatments on the growth of children treated with Korean herbal medicine (KHM). Methods : Forty-two children of growth retardation were evaluated from January 2007 to May 2008. All children were administered KHM with diet and exercise guidance. Height percentile and predictive height were calculated following the General Growth Statistics Result (2007), and compared those of pre-treatment with post-treatment. Results : Thirty-one of them were improved (73.8%) and eleven were not (26.2%). The mean growth rate was 7.2cm/yr for male and 6.8cm/yr for female. The mean growth percentile of male showed 7.6% improvement (p=0.003), female 4.4% respectively (p=0.036). The mean predictive height of male showed 2.2cm improvement (p=0.005), female 1.0cm respectively (p=0.007). Change of growth percentile and height were significantly higher on period of prepuberty, and in small children below 50% of height percentile. About inter-relations between growth improvement and compliance of diet, exercise or medication, meaningful statistics were shown in diet control than the others (p=0.077). Diet compliance was in close connection with exercise, but others were not shown close correlations. Conclusions : These results showed that KHM showed promising results on children growth and healthy diet would be an important factor for growth of children. And it was recommended that KHM should be applied on period of prepuberty and smaller than average height.