Abstract:

In recent years, the incidence of tic disorders in pediatric clinical practice has been steadily increasing, emerging as a significant issue affecting the physical and mental development of affected children. This condition not only manifests as involuntary muscle tics or abnormal vocalizations but may also be accompanied by emotional and behavioral problems, directly impacting children's academic performance, daily life, and peer interactions. It urgently calls for collaborative attention from families, schools, and the healthcare institutions. Western medicine treatments may cause side effects such as sedation or drowsiness, and parents often worry about these adverse reactions and thus refuse to allow their children to take such medications. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) takes a different approach, proposing the concept of collaterals—organic pathways connecting internal organs and external limbs, and communicating between upper and lower parts of the body, which provides a unique perspective for TCM treatment. Based on the profound theoretical foundation of traditional Chinese medicine and rich clinical practice, the supervisor, Professor Feng Xiaochun, puts forward the academic idea of "differentiated treatment for children's diseases based on collaterals", and creatively believes that the core pathogenesis of the disease lies mainly in the "liver collateral imbalance", so the principle of its clinical treatment is to calm the liver and stop the wind and relax the tendons and promote the circulation. This is achieved by selecting herbal formulas with the effects of calming the liver, stopping wind, relieving spasms, and promoting circulation, while skillfully combining the external treatment of massage and herbal plaster application (Pingdong ointment), thus forming an integrated treatment system of "internal medication and external regulation" for childhood tic disorders. This approach has achieved significant therapeutic effects and advanced the prevention and treatment of childhood diseases from experience-based inheritance to precise intervention, bringing new insights to the prevention and treatment of childhood diseases.

Key words: Tic disorders, Collateral, Massage, Integrated internal and external treatment, Child