Hospitals are increasing  their use of integrative medicine, which is no surprise since the majority of healthcare workers use these therapies.

    The results of a recent survey of over 700 American hospitals were reported by the American Hospital Association by the non-profit Samueli Institute.  They asked hospitals about their Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) offerings; a few highlights are below.  The results are heartening for those wanting customized, full-spectrum integrative health care when needing hospital care.

    The following are the top five most interesting findings:
1.     42% of the hospitals offer one or more CAM treatments. This is up 5% from the last survey in 2007.
2.     CAM treatment types available at hospitals: massage, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutritional counseling, acupuncture, smoking cessation, fitness training and more.
3.     Top reasons hospitals offer CAM therapies: patient demand (#1) and clinical effectiveness (#2).
4.     Top reason hospitals don't have more more CAM therapies: budgetary constraints.
5.     And the number one most popular CAM therapy: massage therapy.

    Massage therapy, along with many of the above listed CAM therapies has been a long-standing treatment option available at private offices nationwide.  The introduction of such CAM therapies to hospitals will benefit both the hospital and the patient. 

    Hospitals benefit by being able to better optimize patient healing, recovery and pain management to name a few (which may result in shorter hospital stays, fewer complications and less medical intervention). 

    According to Nancy Foster, AHA's VP of quality and patient safety, patients benefit by these hospitals' "desire to treat the whole person—body, mind and spirit...Hospitals have long known that what they do to treat and heal involves more than just medications and procedures. It is about using all of the art and science of medicine to restore the patient as fully as possible.”  Sounds like a game plan we all can agree on!

    Thank you for reading, please leave a comment below or email directly.

Fevers- a bane for busy parents rushing to get the kids off to school, and themselves to work.  Worry-making in their speed and intensity, many turn to the medicine cabinet to see what can take the fever away fastest. Fevers are also a conundrum for those parents wanting to take a more natural approach to their family's medical care: to Asprin or not to Asprin?Well, I'm just a bit behind the times, but earlier in January (1/11/2011), there appeared in NY Times titled, "Lifting a Veil of Fear to See a Few Benefits of Fever."  While much of the article was relegated to describing the quagmire of antipyretics (anti-fever meds), figuring out effective doses with what has on hand for the immediate situation of a sick child, there was also a pleasing amount of updated information dispelling the fever-as-boogey-man perspective that is so pervasive.

Towards the end of the article,I was pleased to see a quote by Dr. Janet Serwint,  professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, who said, “I personally think there should be much more education about this at well visits,” going on to say that she believes parents should learn about “the helpfulness of fever — how fever actually is a well-orchestrated healthy response of our body.”

Finally, some vindication for our doctors since time immoral who have praised and made use of the fever response in acute illnesses! These ideas are anything but new.  These concepts were known all the way back in Hippocrates' time, who proclaimed, "Give me a fever, and I can cure the child."  The fever was a necessary part of the process, not a negative side effect to be stamped out as quickly as possible.

The fever process is carefully regulated by an important, central part of the brain (hypothalamus), which is told via our immune system that there are pathogens on board.  This causes our brain to re-set our temperature, first causing the sensation of chills (brain says, "we're too cold"), then as the immune system deals with the illness, the hypothalamus eases up and a fever develops then breaks ("we need more heat," then "ok, enough heat; we're done with the fever thing, time to sweat it all out").

Without the fever process, our immune defense is crippled in dealing with otherwise relatively benign illnesses.  Without proper and complete immune responses, our body is less able to respond quickly and efficiently to the next round of similar bug going around later that year, or the next since it was never able to properly learn how to deal with the illness the first time around.

On the cautionary side (we are, after all, dealing with people here, particularly children), there is the concern about high fevers (over 104-105 degrees fahrenheit) inducing seizures. These cases should soon find themselves in urgent care, although epilepsy and subsequent brain damage has been dispelled as possible effects from high fevers.  Again, the hypothalamus which tells the body to heat up has its own internal system that puts the breaks on the fever process before we enter danger zone.

So, the next time you come down with a fever, consider all the sides and potential self-treatments (contact your local Naturopathic Doctor for more information!), and for many benign acute illnesses (those things going around every year), rest and chicken soup may be just what the doctor (who has the most up-to-date and comprehensive knowledge on treatments) ordered!

Thank you for reading. I appreciate all those comments and suggestions I have received thus far.  I always welcome your responses.
-Angela