Qi Zhang1, Jianhang Zhou1, Bob Zhang2. 1. The PAMI Research Group, Department of Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macau SAR, People's Republic of China. 2. The PAMI Research Group, Department of Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macau SAR, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: bobzhang@um.edu.mo.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis is based on the theoretical principles and knowledge, where it is steeped in thousands of years of history to diagnose various types of diseases and syndromes. It can be generally divided into four main diagnostic approaches: 1. Inspection, 2. Auscultation and olfaction, 3. Inquiry, and 4. Palpation, which are widely used in TCM hospitals in China and around the world. With the development of intelligent computing technology in recent years, computational TCM diagnosis has grown rapidly. METHODS: In this paper, we aim to systematically summarize the development of computational TCM diagnosis based on four diagnostic approaches, mainly focusing on digital acquisition devices, collected datasets, and computational detection approaches (algorithms). Furthermore, all related works of this field are compared and explored in detail. RESULTS: This survey provides the principles, applications, and current progress in computing for readers and researchers in terms of computational TCM diagnosis. Moreover, the future development direction, prospect, and technological trend of computational TCM diagnosis will also be discussed in this study. CONCLUSIONS: Recent computational TCM diagnosis works are compared in detail to show the pros/cons, where we provide some meaningful suggestions and opinions on the future research approaches in this area. This work is useful for disease detection in computational TCM diagnosis as well as health management in the smart healthcare area. INDEX TERMS: Computational diagnosis, Traditional Chinese Medicine, survey, smart healthcare.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis is based on the theoretical principles and knowledge, where it is steeped in thousands of years of history to diagnose various types of diseases and syndromes. It can be generally divided into four main diagnostic approaches: 1. Inspection, 2. Auscultation and olfaction, 3. Inquiry, and 4. Palpation, which are widely used in TCM hospitals in China and around the world. With the development of intelligent computing technology in recent years, computational TCM diagnosis has grown rapidly. METHODS: In this paper, we aim to systematically summarize the development of computational TCM diagnosis based on four diagnostic approaches, mainly focusing on digital acquisition devices, collected datasets, and computational detection approaches (algorithms). Furthermore, all related works of this field are compared and explored in detail. RESULTS: This survey provides the principles, applications, and current progress in computing for readers and researchers in terms of computational TCM diagnosis. Moreover, the future development direction, prospect, and technological trend of computational TCM diagnosis will also be discussed in this study. CONCLUSIONS: Recent computational TCM diagnosis works are compared in detail to show the pros/cons, where we provide some meaningful suggestions and opinions on the future research approaches in this area. This work is useful for disease detection in computational TCM diagnosis as well as health management in the smart healthcare area. INDEX TERMS: Computational diagnosis, Traditional Chinese Medicine, survey, smart healthcare.