When you picked up this issue of Acupuncture Today, you probably rubbed your eyes and asked yourself: Why the new design?
The changes actually came about after reviewing the results of an online reader survey that we announced in Acupuncture Today last year, and conducted at the end of 2003. If you were one of the many who completed that online survey, you have our sincere thanks. Starting with this issue, you will begin to see many enhancements to the publication based on your feedback.
Please know that whenever we conduct a survey, we take the results very seriously. When you take the time to speak to us, via fax, e-mail or telephone, we take the time to listen.
There are actually a number of reasons for the new design, one of the main reasons of which is readability. As you can see, the new design allows us to list every article in each issue of AT on the front page. This means that you can easily scan the entire issue from the front page and move directly to the specific news, columnists and features you're interested in reading. The new design also includes different type fonts that make the newspaper easier to read.
As you review the first column directory (on the left side of the front page of the print version), you will notice that we are now focused on six areas of information:
News
Clinical Acupuncture
Practice Management
Herbs/Supplements/Bodywork
Art & Philosophy
Featured Items
These topics are foundational to the acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession, and will be the focus of every issue. Each of these topics has its own theme color, making it easier to identify the articles you want to read the most.
The second reason for the new design is to integrate the printed presentation of Acupuncture Today articles with the online presentation, i.e., to better integrate AT with acupuncturetoday.com. We are in the process of designing a highly sophisticated, dynamic online database structure that will ultimately allow our readers to follow news and information according to multiple criteria. This will make the hundreds of articles already on acupuncturetoday.com much more accessible according to your needs and interests.
The new design also includes a move toward our being able to publish the articles you want to read. In response to the reader survey results, you will see more articles on those topics you most want to read about, and less of those you don't. All topics have been ranked according to the survey results; this ranking helps determine how many articles on each topic are published each year. Another survey will be conducted at the end of 2004 to verify our initial results and make any necessary adjustments for 2005.
Because of the vast amount of information that comes through our office every day, it has become virtually impossible to publish every article that should published in print. Several months ago, we began to address this situation by publishing certain articles and news items "online only" on the front page of acupuncturetoday.com. To improve matters further, we have established a permanent online-only section, which you can access at www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/online_only.php. Titles of online-only articles will now be included in a highlighted box on the left-hand side of the front page of the printed version of Acupuncture Today, and new articles will be added on a continual basis.
Finally, we are attempting to add more articles to each issue of Acupuncture Today. This is in response to your request for more concise articles. By making the articles more concise, you can read more articles on more topics in the same amount of time you spend now. This provides you with more useful information, while respecting the limited time you have to read the publication.
Acupuncture Today will continue to strive for excellence in all areas. More improvements are on the horizon for acupuncturetoday.com, using the latest technology to provide you (and the tens of thousands of other monthly visitors) with the best experience possible. Please accept our open invitation for suggestions on how we can continue to enhance the best publication (and Web site) in the acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession.
Have a suggestion on how we can improve Acupuncture Today and acupuncturetoday.com? Send your comments to editorial@acupuncturetoday.com and let us know what you think.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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