Integrated Health - Positive Research
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Integrated health means bringing together mainstream medical science with the best of complementary therapies so that patients can benefit from both - and have more say in their treatment at the same time. (The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health)For instance, acupuncture has been successful in controlling pain for many patients with arthritis and can be used alongside conventional treatment.
Now a new, year long trial supported by the Northern Ireland health service has demonstrated that integrating complementary and conventional medicine brings measurable benefits to patients’ health:
* For 65% of the patients, their doctors reported a significant improvement in health;
* Half the GPs said they had been able to reduce prescribed medication and the same number that their patients needed less frequent referral to hospital;
* Four out of ten patients reported an improvement in symptoms, 81% said their general health and well-being had improved and 55% said they had been able to reduce their use of pain killers.
less cost NHS
Surely the point here is that, at a national level, complementary therapies often cost less than a course of drugs. Why? Simply because they are based on attention to the individual situation and are not based on (low) statistical chances of success.
This should not really surprise us - as The Prince of Wales says:
“We are infinitely complex beings - mind, body and spirit - that cannot just be reduced to mechanical functioning. Healthcare should, and must, attend appropriately to all three aspects.”
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