Studies and Progress Notes (July 2007)

* *  SPIRITUAL AWARENESS AND WHOLISTIC HEALING * * 

Effects of Healing Touch on nursing home residents in later stages of Alzheimer Disease

There are half a million people institutionalized for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the US and uncounted others cared for privately. While those who may not have had contact with people who have Alzheimer’s might write them off as not needing care because they are not aware of their own conditions, this is a gross misperception. These people suffer from confusion, distress at being unable to care for themselves, fears, pains, and more. Palliative treatments that slow the progress of AD are available, though not very effective. Symptomatic treatments with drugs often diminish quality of life. CAM therapies are welcome because they relieve symptoms without side effects.

“In a pilot study… 10 Healing Touch treatments were administered by a Healing Touch practitioner over 5 weeks’ time (two treatments per week) to five residents of a local long term nursing facility whose primary diagnosis was Alzheimer’s Disease. During this time, and for one week prior, and one week after the treatments, members of the direct care staff rated resident behaviors on a 10-item Functional Behavior Profile twice weekly. The ratings ranged from “5” (best) to “1” (poorest). At the end of the seven weeks, each resident had deteriorated in at least one behavior (an average of 2.8 for the group), but each person had also improved in at least five behavioral areas with a group average of 6.2 behaviors, at a significance level of p=.020.

Twelve clients from the same long-term care facility with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease were selected... They were divided into a treatment and control (non-treatment) group on the basis of staff reports of each client’s approximate stage of progress in the illness. Thus, each group had one “high-mid” client, one “mid” client, three “mid-late” clients and one “late” stage client.

The methodology include observations of 10 behaviors that were rated on a 5-point scale by members of the direct care staff: appetite, sleep, comfort (freedom from pain), orientation, compliance with daily routine, socialization, composure (emotional stability), non-verbal responses, freedom from jargon, and conversational communication. Data was collected on al 12 residents four times before treatments began, twice weekly during treatments, and again four times after treatments were discontinued.

Residents in the treatment group received two Healing Touch treatments per week for five weeks for a total of 10 treatments each. Treatments ranged from 10 to 20 minutes in length. Modalities were selected on the basis of the resident’s physical disposition (lying on bed, sitting in chair with tray, sleeping, walking, etc.), and upon the author’s perception of the resident’s treatment needs in that moment. These were typically, full body connection or an adaptation, chakra spread, magnetic unruffling or therapeutic touch as described in the Healing Touch notebooks…”

Results:
1. “Average improvement in the behavior scores across all 10 behavioral items for the treatment group across five weeks of treatment was significant at the p=.046 level. No improvement was seen in the average behavior scores of the control group. Decline in average behavior scores was noted, but was not significant.
2. Average behavior scores for the item “Composure” (freedom from agitation, extreme restlessness, catastrophic outbursts, bouts of uncontrolled weeping, etc.) improved significantly at the p=.024 level; the average scores of the control group did not change significantly.
3. Average behavior scores for the time “Physical Comfort” (freedom from complaints or non-verbal indications of pain) improved significantly for the treatment group at the p=.005 level; the average scores of the control group did not change significantly.

HT may be a promising complementary treatment for late-stage bedridden residents with dementia for whom so little else can be done. Future research should focus on the effects of HT on residents with dementia and whether direct care staff do in fact, find these patients easier to care for. The effects of HT upon specific events of a resident’s daily routine e.g., easier transition into nursing home living, reduced need for extra medication for anxiety, prior to events that cause some residents to have extra resistance, such as bath time should be investigated. Finally, the effects of HT should be explored as a method for enriching the visits of family members with their loved ones who have dementia; as a way of involving volunteers in care of these residents; and as stress reducing treatments for staff.

Elizabeth Ostuni, Mary Jo Santo Pietro. Effects of Healing Touch on Nursing Home Residents in Later Stages of Alzheimer Disease, From research summaries, Healing Touch International
Presentations: World Alzheimer’s Congress 2000, Washington DC, July 18, 2000;
Healing Touch International Fifth Annual Conference, January, 2001.

IJHC – WHR Observations

This research report is cited in greater detail because it is not generally available.

 * *  FUTURE RESEARCH IN WHOLISTIC HEALING * * 

The IJHC/WHR E-Zine features monthly suggestions for future research in healing.
READERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT SUGGESTIONS FOR TOPICS TO STUDY
If your topic is chosen, you ill receive free access to the IJHC for a month, including the current issue and all back issues.

Getting to the truth about distant healing

There has been controversy recently over whether prayer healing and other non-local healing approaches are real, following publication of several large studies that did not demonstrate healing effects of prayer healing. The galvanic skin response (GSR – same test used for lie detectors) provides a distinct, measurable response to distant healing. This is the most robust of any researched effect in humans. This could be used to validate distant prayer healing effects in people being sent healing for medical and psychological problems – as an effect of the healing that is commonly correlated with de-stressing.

In this model, the healer sits in a room in the laboratory that is completely isolated from the room in which the healee is sitting. The healee has a GSR meter attached to his or her hand, with a long wire extending to the room in which the healer is sitting. This gives the healer feedback on whether the healing being sent to relax the healee is successful. 

Details of GSR studies are annotated in
Benor, DJ. Healing Research, V. 1 - Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution
   Professional edition
   www.wholistichealingresearch.com/
volume1professionalsupplement.html

 

* *  WHOLISTIC APPROACHES * * 

Labor and management partner for universal health care coverage

The Partnership for Quality Care (PQC) is a unique new coalition including some of the nation’s largest health care providers and labor unions. Goals: to press for reform and improvement of our health care system through a coalition of public, private, religious, teaching and nonprofit hospitals and integrated health systems as well as more than a million US health care workers across the country. Members of the Partnership care for more than 45 million patients annually.

“With an initial budget of at least $5 million, PQC will work in 2007 and 2008 to educate communities and elected representatives across the country through events, direct mail, grassroots and online organizing, media, and more.”  One of their first goals is to “expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to allow states to cut the number of uninsured children by half over the next five years.”

“PQC’s principles are to:

• Ensure universal health care coverage for all Americans;
• Improve the quality and efficiency of health care services by adopting clinical best practices and promoting organized systems of care;
• Establish a stable, equitable, broad-based, and predictable health care financing system;
• Promote affordability and address rising health care costs by advancing opportunities to achieve the greatest value for our health care dollars;
• Provide meaningful individual choice of providers and plans while promoting preventive care, protecting consumers from the costs of major illnesses, and improving the management of chronic conditions; and
• Achieve greater reliability in health care coverage, including improved portability of coverage and continuity of care.”

“PQC will work in 2007 and 2008 at the federal, state and local levels to advance reliable and affordable access to health care coverage for all Americans within a reformed health care system that aggressively promotes improved quality and efficiency.”

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0502-04.htm
CONTACT: Service Employees International Union
Gretchen Wright, Johanna Diaz 202/371-1999

IJHC – WHR Observations

With the US lagging in quality of health care behind 36 other countries in the world, despite having the most expensive healthcare expenses, and with millions of American adults and children devoid of health care coverage, this is a more in the right direction.
For global ranking of health care see http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
Countries ranked by the World Health Organization (WHO) ahead of the US include, among others, # 1 – France; #2 – Italy; #6 – Singapore; #7 – Spain; #10 – Japan; #11 – Norway; #18 - United Kingdom; #19 – Ireland; #22 - Colombia; #24 – Cyprus; #25 – Germany; #26 - Saudi Arabia; #28 - Israel; #30 - Canada; #32 - Australia; #35 - Dominica; #36 - Costa Rica

 * *  COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES * * 

Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: a 6-year, university-hospital outpatient observational study.

Abstract:
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess health changes seen in routine homeopathic care for patients with a wide range of chronic conditions who were referred to a hospital outpatient department.

Design: This was an observational study of 6544 consecutive follow-up patients during a 6-year period.

Setting: Hospital outpatient unit within an acute National Health Service (NHS) Teaching Trust in the United Kingdom.

Participants: Every patient attending the hospital outpatient unit for a follow-up appointment over the study period was included, commencing with their first follow-up attendance.

Main outcome measure: Outcomes were based on scores on a 7-point Likert-type scale at the end of the consultation and were assessed as overall outcomes compared to the initial baseline assessments. RESULTS: A total of 6544 consecutive follow-up patients were given outcome scores. Of the patients 70.7% (n = 4627) reported positive health changes, with 50.7% (n = 3318) recording their improvement as better (+2) or much better (+3).

Conclusions: Homeopathic intervention offered positive health changes to a substantial proportion of a large cohort of patients with a wide range of chronic diseases. Additional observational research, including studies using different designs, is necessary for further research development in homeopathy.

Source: Spence DS, Thompson EA, Barron SJ. Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: a 6-year, university-hospital outpatient observational study, J Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2006, 12(2), 103
United Bristol Healthcare, National Health Service Trust, Bristol, United Kingdom. David.Spence@ubht.nhs.uk

IJHC – WHR Observations

Homeopathy is under attack in the UK. Conventional medicine is repeating in the UK its assertion that Newtonian (allopathic) medicine is the only legitimate health care intervention – a century after the American Medical Association successfully eliminated homeopathy in the US through similar tactics. The claim is being made that there is no theory to explain homeopathy and that there is no acceptable research evidence to support it.
See: NHS urged to reject homoeopathy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6683489.stm

A century of quantum physics, however, stands in the way of this being a legitimate argument today. Newtonian medicine has been slow to absorb that energy and matter are interconvertible. Conventional science has accepted that the chair you sit on and the floor you stand on can be described as energies, waves and particles – as more space than matter. Newtonian medicine has been very slow, or deliberately obtuse, to this theoretically well established and scientifically supported understanding of the world. (See much more on homeopathy in the context of energy medicine in the upcoming September issue of IJHC.)

This commentary is not an attack on the merits of conventional medicine, which is good at treating infections and surgically and genetically correctable problems. The body can be described as matter and treated with drugs and surgery and radiation and genetic engineering.

The body can equally well be described as energy, which is what Complementary Medicine often addresses. See article on Energy Medicine.

Newtonian Medicine, funded by the enormously profitable (at your and my expense) and therefore wealthy pharmaceutical industry, is mounting a global campaign to eliminate the serious and steadily growing competition that CAM is posing to its profits. See discussions of CODEX in Europe, and now the campaign of the FDA and legislators in the US. Starting with setting unreasonable limitations on vitamins, minerals and other supplements in Europe, the campaign continues with attacks on CAM.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE FDA. LET YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT KNOW YOUR OPINIONS, WISHES, AND VOTING INTENTIONS.

More CAM reviews at
www.naturalhealthvillage.com
www.mdlinx.com/FamilyMDLinx 
 www.ucalgary.ca/~camig/litsearch.html
AMSA website
www.amsa.org/humed/camresources/camnews.cfm

* * TECHNOLOGY * *

Implanted physiology monitors for prevention of serious medical problems

Sensors that are implanted under the skin, with wires to the heart, could monitor people’s conditions when they are at high risk for deterioration of heart failure; or when with wires to a blood vessel when they have an aneurysm. Wireless readings from the implant will be monitored in a medical center.

Source: Wall Street Journal 2/28/07

Other links:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20021122-00
http://www.engj.ulst.ac.uk/nibec/thinfilm/pptpres/shortcource98/

IJHC-WHR Observations

Research must still confirm that the risks of implant surgery are compensated by reduced ‘serious incidents’ such as heart attacks or visits to the emergency room.

* *  ENVIRONMENT (HEALING OUR PLANET) * *

We are drinking each others’ drugs

Most people either:

1. flush medications down the toilet, which distributes them into the water supply. Fish and other animals end up consuming them. Humans may then get these drugs in food as well as in water.

2. put them into the garbage, which ends up in landfills, which still put the drugs back into the environment as they are dissolved and seep into the water supply.

Western countries’ water supplies are heavily contaminated with hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, antidepressants and other drugs. While it is difficult, if not impossible, to absolutely prove a causal connection between these pollutants and fish in the Potomac River, near Washington DC that now show both male and female characteristics, it is suspected that discarded hormones may be the cause for these aberrations.

Several Group Health clinics in Washington State are helping people dispose of old medications without polluting the environment. Pills that are unused are dropped into a blue bin at the medical center and then incinerated. Drug control laws prohibit the program from disposing of narcotics.

The branch of environmental contaminants at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, along with the American Pharmacists Association, is mounting a campaign to discourage pharmaceutical flushing and offer alternative disposal guidelines. “Similar guidelines were issued in February by the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The gist of the guidelines:

•Don't flush old medications unless the patient information packet that comes with a drug specifically advises it (as will still be the case for certain narcotics and other medications that have a high potential for danger or abuse).

•It's OK to throw most prescription and non-prescription drugs in the trash — but only after taking a few steps. Crush pills or dissolve them in water; dilute liquid medications, too. Then mix the drugs with kitty litter, coffee grounds or other unappealing materials. Place the mess in a sealed plastic bag and discard.

•Remove and destroy prescription labels before throwing away original containers.

•Find out whether any sites in your community have legal approval to collect and discard consumers' unused medications. In some states, pharmacies can take back medications.

•When in doubt, ask your pharmacist for advice.

• Don’t leave old medications lying around at home – they are a health hazard if they deteriorate or are consumed by children or pets.

Finding new ways to throw out old drugs won't keep them entirely out of the water system — because an estimated 70% to 80% of drug residues are from human waste [feces] — but it can make a difference...
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/painter/2007-04-22-old-medicine_N.htm?csp=34

IJHC – WHR Observations

It is encouraging to see this early beginning at dealing with unused drugs. We must develop an awareness that we are part of the environment and it is a part of us. We cannot continue to dump wastes into our waterways.

 * *  HUMAN ECOLOGY* * 

 Seniors not discussing complementary and alternative medicine use with their doctors

“In spite of the high use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among people age 50 or older, 69 percent of those who use CAM do not talk to their doctors about it, according to a new survey conducted by AARP and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health. The survey examined conversations between patients and their physicians regarding CAM use…

* The topics most often discussed with doctors were the effectiveness of a CAM therapy (67 percent); what to use (64 percent); how a CAM therapy might interact with other medications or treatments received (60 percent); advice on whether to pursue a CAM therapy (60 percent); and safety of a CAM therapy (57 percent)…

* Nearly three-fourths of respondents said they take one or more prescription medications; in addition, 59 percent of respondents said they take one or more over-the-counter medications. Twenty percent of respondents reported taking more than five prescription medications.

* The high number of prescription and over-the-counter medications used by this group underscores the need for consumers and physicians to discuss all therapies, including CAM, to ensure safe, integrated care.”

http://www.aarp.org/research/health/prevention/cam_2007.html

IJHC – WHR Observations

This problem persists, despite growing inclusion of some CAM modalities in medical practices. It is common not only in the cases of the elderly, but in people of all ages. Hopefully, with inc