KOU Sengka, WONG Cheokkin, HO Chenghang, SHEN Jian
Objective To analyze the general condition and
characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes in patients
during the COVID-19 recovery period in Macau. Methods A retrospective study was conducted on 980
patients with COVID-19 recovery period who visited the TCM simple outpatient
clinic of Kiang Wu Hospital in Macau from January 2 to February 18, 2023. The
basic characteristics, TCM syndrome features, and medication information of the
patients were collected and analyzed. Results The patients with COVID-19 recovery period
were approximately 47 years old, and most of them were female. Common symptoms were
cough (83.84%), dyspnea (48.98%), fatigue (45.71%), throat itching (34.46%),
dry mouth (23.62%), etc.; the tongue appearance was mainly pale red tongue
(45.8%), and the tongue coating was commonly thin coating (27%) and greasy coating
(19.1%). The main TCM syndrome type was wind evil invading lung syndrome
(33.1%); phlegm heat obstructing lung syndrome was most common in young
patients; depression of evil in shaoyang syndrome was more common in patients
over 45 years old; wind heat attacking surface syndrome was mainly seen in
young and middle-aged patients. The distribution of TCM syndrome types in
different age groups was significantly different (P<0.05). Conclusion Patients in the COVID-19 recovery period
may have residual symptoms in respiratory tract and other symptoms. The TCM
syndromes show the characteristics of a mixture of deficiency and excess,
deficiency of root and excess of branch, with wind evil as the main excess
evil, and qi deficiency and yin deficiency as the main deficiency of vital energy.
The treatment should focus on strengthening vital energy and expelling evil,
protecting the qi of lung and spleen, and the yin of lung and stomach, and
expelling wind, phlegm, heat and other residual evils.