Alternative healthcare articles

Alternative healthcare

Visits to "alternative" health care
providers rise 47% in 7 years

In the November 11th, 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA), David Eisenberg, M.D. published his long awaited follow up study on the use of Alternative Medicine in the United States. Several years earlier, Dr. Eisenberg published his initial study that rocked the medical community with his findings of how many people were actually going to what he termed Alternative Providers.

From inside the medical profession, any other health care profession was known as an alternative. However, the numbers from the Eisenberg study quickly showed that chiropractic and other non-medical forms of health care are not alternative in the public’s eye.

This new study, conducted in 1997, illustrated some astounding facts and figures.

Americans spent $27 billion out-of-pocket for alternative therapies in 1997.
Four out of 10 people used alternative healthcare in 1997.
Visits to alternative health care providers (mostly chiropractors) increased by almost 50% from 1990.
The number of visits to alternative health care providers (629 million) exceeded visits to medical providers (only 386 million) visits in 1997 alone.
Less than 40% of patients tell their medical doctors that they seek alternative therapies.

Researchers also found that 42% of the alternative care was for existing illness while 58% was used for prevention and wellness. These numbers look good for the chiropractic profession, which has built its health care delivery future on wellness. "Many people initially enter the chiropractor’s office for a health problem. But many then stay there for the wellness benefits chiropractic has to offer", says Robert Braile, D.C. President of the International Chiropractor Association.

Spirituality and healing in medicine

PRNewswire, December 16, 2000 published an article concerning the movement of the medical profession toward spirituality. According to Herbert Benson, M.D., president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, "Spirituality and healing are rapidly becoming integrated into mainstream American medicine."

"Over the last ten years, we have witnessed a substantial growth in the role and application of spirituality and healing in medicine," said Dr. Benson. "It is our hope that this evolution will continue and build momentum for more widespread acceptance by managed care organizations and insurers."

Dr Benson noted that since 1990, almost 1,500 research studies, research reviews, articles and clinical trials have been published on the connection of spirituality or religion to medicine and health. This figure is equal to the total of all such pieces published prior to 1990.

Harold G. Koenig, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center states, "We are astounded and thrilled with the explosion of research in the past ten years. These studies have explored almost all aspects of medicine, from kidney disease to sexual dysfunction. The collective findings and positive results indicate that we have just broken the surface. Imagine what the next ten years will bring."

These views are certainly not just the views of certain individuals. In a 1999 consensus report, the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine suggested that physician care include a review of, and attentiveness to, psychosocial, existential or spiritual suffering of patients with serious medical illness.

The chiropractic slant on this is obvious. All healing comes from within. Whether you consider it spiritual, nature, innate intelligence, or whatever, the main focus of chiropractic is to remove interference and allow it to work!

Non medical care usage continues to rise

A study by Harvard Medical School, published in the August 21, 2001 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, examined trends in the use of 20 different CAMs (Complementary and Alternative Medicine), covering everything from acupuncture to yoga, among representative groups across the U.S. The study continued to show that the use of what the study termed "CAM" has continued to rise. The study was done by a nationally representative telephone survey of 2055 people.

The results showed that approximately 3 of every 10 respondents in the pre–baby boom cohort, 5 of 10 in the baby boom cohort, and 7 of 10 in the post–baby boom cohort reported using some type of CAM therapy by age 33 years. The study also noted that of the respondents who ever used a CAM therapy, nearly half continued to use it many years later. A wide range of individual CAM therapies increased in use over time, and the growth was similar across all major sociodemographic sectors of the study population.

The term CAM is a medically created term that may itself not be very representative as most of the procedures included in the list are neither complimentary or alternatives to medicine. In fact many such as chiropractic are completely separate primary health care professions that are not even considered alternative in many references.

The conclusion of the Harvard study as published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was that the "Use of CAM therapies by a large proportion of the study sample is the result of a secular trend that began at least a half century ago. This trend suggests a continuing demand for CAM therapies that will affect health care delivery for the foreseeable future."

More people using non-medical care

From the September 4, 2001 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine comes an article with the long title, Perceptions about Complementary Therapies Relative to Conventional Therapies among Adults Who Use Both: Results from a National Survey. The survey conducted tests for the usage of what the researchers call Complementary Medicine. It should be noted that the term Complementary Medicine (also known as "CAM") usually means procedures that, in fact, are not medical procedures. The largest portion of this category of procedures is represented by chiropractic care.

The study did not separate the different Complementary Medicine procedures statistically, but the findings were none the less interesting. Some of the statistics were:

79% of patients surveyed perceived the combination of CAM and conventional care to be superior than either form of care by itself.
Of those that used CAM services and conventional medical services, 70% saw their conventional provider first, 15% saw their CAM provider first.
Of those that used CAM services, 63% to 72% did not disclose that fact regarding at least one type of CAM service to their conventional medical provider.
81% of respondents reported that they had "total" or "a lot of" confidence in their CAM provider, while 77% had the same levels of confidence in their medical providers.

In the same publication one month earlier was an article discussing the same subject of CAM. In the conclusion of that article some profound statements were made. "Previously reported analyses of these data showed that more than one third of the U.S. population was currently using CAM therapy in the year of the interview (1997). Subsequent analyses of lifetime use and age at onset showed that 67.6% of respondents had used at least one CAM therapy in their lifetime." The article ended with, "Use of CAM therapies by a large proportion of the study sample is the result of a secular trend that began at least a half century ago. This trend suggests a continuing demand for CAM therapies that will affect health care delivery for the foreseeable future.

Healing power of humor

Studies are now showing that laughter may be one of the healthiest things you can do. Several recent studies show that laugher is actually very healthy and promotes healing from within. One study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Feb 14, 2001 came from research at Unitika Central Hospital in Japan. In this study the Japanese found that skin welts shrank in allergy patients who watched Charlie Chaplin's comedic classic "Modern Times," but not in patients who watched a video on weather.

Head researcher, Dr. Hajime Kimata said, "These results suggest that the induction of laughter may play some role in alleviating allergic diseases." Dr Kimata was influenced by a previous study by Norman Cousins' whose 30-year-old research suggested that laughter and a positive attitude can help reduce pain. Cousins suffered from a life-threatening joint disease and reported that 10 minutes of laughter helped reduce his pain.

In another study on laugher and health, Dr. Michael Miller of the University of Maryland Medical Center, led a study of 300 people, half of whom had suffered a heart attack or had undergone coronary artery bypass surgery. The other half matched the first group in age, but had no heart problems. Both groups were asked to answer two questionnaires designed to find out how much they laugh and what their levels of anger and hostility were in a variety of situations. The results showed that the group with heart disease was 40 percent less likely to laugh, and was also more likely to feel hostility and anger.

A different but similar study by an Ohio State University researcher also suggests a link between one's happiness and the state of one's heart. In that large-scale, 10-year study the results showed that clinically depressed men had been found to be more than twice as likely to die of a heart attack as those who did not suffer from depression. The Ohio study was published in the October 2000 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

If you had to go for a moral to these stories you might be inclined to say that these studies show that "Health IS a laughing matter!"

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