RESEARCH ARTICLE t i t

ne de Insurance Corporation in 2009, the estimated cost to treat and manage cerebrovascular diseases totals 920 bil-and involves the classification of patients into certain categories. However, other medical systems did not Kang et al. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2012, 12:55 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/12/55conditions [2-6]. Lee et al. [7] released the Korean StandardMedical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korealion won (approximately 0.87 billion dollars) [1]. Historically, traditional Korean medicine (TKM), which considers- the location, cause, and nature of patients’ diseases, has been the major treatment modality in the Korean medical system for properly treating stroke patients. TKM has a unique diagnostic system called pattern identification (PI), which distinguishes it from modern recognize the pattern classifications of TKM as a diag-nostic system by TKM doctors, which prompted these doctors to study whether they could make the same diagnosis in identical patients (reliability) and whether their diagnoses were accurate (validity). Considering the importance of PI in determining treatment regimens, an accurate questionnaire is warranted. In the last five years, many TKM doctors have studied the diagnostic validity and reliability of TKM for various healt