• Santos E

• Chiropractic / Philippines
• Community Health Services
• Complementary Therapies / Philippines
• Open Access Document
• Shoulder Pain

Traditional and alternative forms of medicines have been utilized in the Philippines long before the wide-spread use of pharmaceutical products. This is not limited to the use of herbal plants, but is also involved in the growing scope of the alternative medicines including the guasha therapy, acupuncture, ventosa, chiropractic medicine and taping medicines. This study aims to determine the clinical efficacy of the Philippine carabao horn used in guasha therapy in reducing the level of shoulder pain experienced by the athletes of University of Makati as compared to the use of spoon for the spoon therapy. Guasha therapy can be applied to virtually any part of the body; however, there are certain strokes for each muscle and joint for it to become effective. The guasha therapy has gained popularity in the recent years, but there is paucity of studies and evidences of its use. The limited information available on the guasha therapy suggests improved function and decrease in the level of pain. Guasha therapy appears to have been proven effective and useful in other countries, despite these, the Philippines still lack knowledge, researches and clinical trials about the therapy. Scraper tools from other countries are made up of ceramic plates, jade and ox horn. As observed by the researcher these raw materials are composed of protein called the keratin. The researcher performed a thorough study to find a material that is closely related to the composition of other scraper tool, wanting to utilize the available raw materials in the Philippines, the researcher decided to use the Philippine carabao horn.

Author keywords: Guasha Therapy; Carabao horn; Community health; Philippines.

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