Live Life Team
In some reputable hospitals, alternative therapies are now increasingly mixed with mainstream medicine. According to osteopathic physician Dr. William Jagiello, the growing popularity of alternative treatment confirms that good medicine incorporates cultural, emotional and spiritual aspects.
Several hospitals are using alternative therapies as mainstream medicine. Psychiatrists at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are prescribing herbal medications to patients to help them overcome depression. The Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, provides cancer patients with complementary treatments including art therapy, yoga, massage therapy and meditation. New York City’s Beth Israel Medical Center opened the specialised Center for Health and Healing where physicians work with practitioners and chiropractors who specialise in clinical imagery, homoeopathy and some alternative treatments. Los Angeles’ Cedars–Sinai Medical Center has just finished testing possible alternative programmes for heart surgery. Hospitals are accepting alternative care for many reasons. For one thing, some of the practises were certified by new scientific studies. Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center also reported that patients using self-hypnotic relaxation methods before surgery required less pain medication, had more stable vital signs during their operation, and left the operating room sooner. This research was published in ‘The Lancet’, a British journal. According to a survey that was published in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’, from 1990 to 1997, the number of Americans who used alternative therapy increased from 33 percent to over 42 percent.
Jagiello predicts that treatments will no longer be classified as conventional or unconventional at some point in the future. What is important is to identify the best treatment for each patient.
