..(continued from pg 1.)...Recently, one of RiverHill Wellness center’s patients was discussed at our weekly integrative clinical consult meeting. The patient, a young woman with severe headaches, was receiving acupuncture as her primary approach to treating her headaches. While the acupuncture clearly helped a lot, there seemed to be room for further improvement. So, we did an integrative consult: After a clinical presentation, the nutritionist recommended certain dietary suggestions; one of the physicians brought to light a possible drug interaction that might be taking place; the psychiatrist questioned into certain emotional dynamics that he was hearing; and the herbalist recommended some supplements that might be beneficial. The patient, after implementing some of the recommendations, is now having her headaches much less often, and reports feeling greater vitality.

Integrative Medicine, however, is more than just a mixture of therapeutic techniques. Most alternative systems of healing share one common characteristic that distinguishes them from conventional Western medicine. They approach sickness as a dynamic event in the life of an individual, an issue of balance and relationship, the result of some disharmony between the ill person and his or her environment. Each person exists in relationship to (and as a part of) their environment. The therapeutic focus of most forms of alternative health is on the person who is ill and the context in which the illness occurs, rather than solely on the disease itself. In other words, just to “fix” the symptom of a headache through a drug (or an acupuncture treatment, for that matter) without looking at the various emotional, lifestyle, and environmental issues that might be giving rise to the headache, is a dangerous proposition at best. If the underlying factors of a symptom are not addressed, and the symptom is taken away, then often some other more serious symptom will eventually appear.

Integrative Medicine encompasses a wide variety of conventional and complementary therapies, while emphasizing education and personal responsibility. Its goal is to support the personal growth and development of each patient so that they can assert their own role in their healing process. As the connection between the patients and their healing process gets stronger, the practitioner begins to fade more and more into the background….much like a midwife who assists in a delivery, and whose support then begins to naturally recede.

While some of the approaches of Integrative Medicine are relatively new, there has been an unprecedented emergence of complimentary medicine over the past twenty years. Utilization of modalities such as acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, yoga, and functional medicine, to name a few, has increased exponentially. A landmark study - done by Dr. Eisenberg, an internist at Harvard Medical School - appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 1993. The study found that one third of the American population had used at least one unconventional therapy in the prior year, and that they spent almost $14-billion on those therapies in 1990. The study estimated that Americans actually spent more money out of pocket on complementary medicine in 1990, then they did on traditional health care.

The study, when it came out in 1993, sent ripples throughout the medical field. It essentially said to traditional Western medicine: Listen up. There is a revolution going on in this country in healthcare utilization. People are expressing (by their actions) that they see great value in complementary medicine, and that it is an important part of their health care. The study not only confirmed complimentary medicine’s rise in this country; it also served as a springboard for greater acceptance of some of these modalities by traditional Western medicine. Many hospitals across the country have begun to incorporate complimentary medicine, while research into these various modalities is at an all time high.

There is a growing understanding in this country that each healthcare modality has certain strengths and weaknesses, and that no one approach is right for every person in each situation in their life. By utilizing different healthcare modalities in a customized combination, a tapestry of support is created that is richer and far more comprehensive than any one modality could be on its own.