Japanese Abdominal Diagnosis

Also known as Hara Diagnosis, JAD is an abdominal palpatory technique used to determine the health of the 10 Organ Officials. Hara Diagnosis must not be used with pregnant women. The abdomen, like the pulse picture, is a template upon which life experiences are registered. In a healthy Hara, the practitioner should be able to palpate to the depth of one knuckle without eliciting pain. Pain, discomfort or odd sensations can indicate that there may be some imbalance in the Organ Official. The Heart palpated last and with only one finger, where the others may be palpated with the hands or fingers, in any order. Palpation should never be aggressive and comfort for the client should be emphasized. 

The palpation locations are as follows:

Heart - just below the xyphoid process

Stomach- at the level of the 8th ribs on the center line

Spleen - at the level of the 10th ribs on the center line

Gall Bladder - at the level of the 11th ribs, just medial to the nipple line

Lung - on the right in line with the umbilicus, just superior to the iliac crest and on the left just superior to the line of the umbilicus and superior to the iliac crest

Liver - on the left just superior to the line of the umbilicus and superior to the iliac crest

Kidney - just below the umbilicus, on the midline 

Bladder - just above the pubis, on the midline

Small Intestine - just inside the right iliacus

Large Intestine - just inside the left iliac

We record JAD by making notes within the Physical Exam on the JAD Form and additional notations about the client’s specific response.  

JAD gives us a subjective measure that we can use over time. Once we’ve collected the information from JAD, we can go back after a few treatments and re-assess. This will give us information about how the treatment is working related to the client’s subjective input. Thus if a client has a tender point, pain, or other odd sensation over the Large Intestine during evaluation, but it is not present in the re-assessment several treatments later, it can provide us with information that the treatments are supporting the person positively.

References:

Personal Class Notes ITEA 2019

Hara Diagnosis - Graywolf