Exploring the prescription laws of bone flaccidity in ancient Chinese medical texts based on association rules and latent structure model

Objective: To analyze the identification and typing of bone flaccidity and the law of medication in ancient books based on the Encyclopaedia of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) using the hidden structure model. Methods: The formulations for bone flaccidity were searched in the Chinese Medical Code (software), based on which an Excel sheet was created to conduct frequency analysis and construct a matrix of high-frequency medications. The high-frequency medications for bone flaccidity were then analyzed using the Latent 5.0 software and a latent structure model. With SPSS Modeler and Latent 5.0 as the main analysis methods, Chinese medications with a frequency >1.00% were investigated using the latent structure model and association rules, and the medication rules in treating bone flaccidity with TCM were dissected based on the data of frequency. Results: A total of 223 TCM prescriptions were included, with 270 extracted TCM and a total medication frequency of 2340 times. Among them are Achyranthis Bidentatae Radix , Poria , Angelicae Sinensis Radix , Eucommiae Cortex , Rehmanniae Radix Praeparata , and Ginseng Radix Et Rhizoma . They were the high-frequency medicines for treating bone flaccidity, and the efficacy of tonifying medicinal, heat-clearing medicinal, and blood activating and stasis-resolving medicinal were high-frequency medicinal categories. Through the analysis of the evidence by formula, it was concluded that spleen-kidney yang deficiency, kidney deficiency and blood stasis, kidney yang deficiency, qi deficiency/qi stagnation and blood stasis, and liver and kidney yin deficiency were the 6 main types of bone flaccidity, which was generally in line with the etiology of bone flaccidity, which was caused by kidney yang deficiency and accompanied by malfunction of the liver and kidneys. In ancient books, the regulation of the kidney is put into an important position. In this study, 19 correlative principles for the treatment of bone flaccidity were derived, whose main combinations are Paeoniae Radix Alba - Angelicae Sinensis Radix, Eucommiae Cortex + Poria-Ginseng Radix Et Rhizoma, Dioscoreae Spongiosae Rhizoma + Cuscutae Semen-Eucommiae Cortex. Conclusions: The medication law of bone flaccidity in the Encyclopaedia of TCM mainly shows that it attaches importance to the regulation of tonifying the liver and kidney to strengthen the tendons and bones and emphasizes that the regulation of the 3 Zang–fu organs, namely the kidney, the liver and the spleen, can play an important role in the treatment of bone flaccidity.