• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.587-593
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• 2013

Exhaustion syndrome(虛勞) became broadly experienced symptoms in Korean population. In this work, we carried out a systematic literature review on exhaustion syndrome(ES) and chronic fatigue. We searched through the databases Koreanstudies Information Service System, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, DataBase Periodical Information Academic for the articles published between 1994 and 2013, with the keywords 'exhaustion syndrome(虛勞)', 'consumption(虛損)', 'overexertion syndrome(勞倦)', 'fatigue', 'chronic fatigue' and 'degree of fatigue'. Among the first-run rough-searched 602 articles, we narrowed down the scope within the field of Oriental medicine (126 articles), and finally selected 28 articles appropriate to the intended research field; the selected articles were categorized by literature study(7 papers), clinical treatment (7), clinical diagnosis (5), treatment effects of herbal medicine (2), diagnosis in Sasang medicine and treatment effect of dry cupping therapy (2), and questionnaire-based diagnosis (5). We found that the overall research level on ES remained in the preliminary stages, and more efforts are needed in the field of terminology definition and standardization of diagnosis, and treatment efficacy validation beyond muscle fatigue. Finally, to develop reliable diagnostic devices on ES, we proposed a study design that included the development of objective ES diagnostic indicators and a clinical validation procedure.