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Alternative Health News
Acupressure Treats Dysmenorrhea
Dysmenorrhea, which can be quite common in women, is characterized by lower abdominal pain and cramping, sometimes accompanied by heavy bleeding, that begins at the start of the menstrual cycle.
Postpartum Depression: Nutritional Considerations
A few days after giving birth, 50-85 percent of women (depending on your source) suffer from various degrees of postpartum depression (PPD). The symptoms include one or more of the following: crying, impatience, insomnia, impatience, irritability, loneliness, mood swings, restlessness and sadness.
Palpatory Musculoskeletal Findings as Early Indicators of Visceral Disease
Throughout the history of manipulative therapy, three major professions, osteopathy, chiropractic and physiotherapy, have incorporated their own significant variations of spinal manipulative therapy into practice.
Army To Include AOM for Pain Treatment
The statistics are sobering, to say the least. According to leading pain specialists  in the Veterans Administration, nine in 10 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans return home with some form of pain, and 60 percent have significant pain.

The Snackwell Effect, Part 2
The Snackwell Effect, Part 1  talked about how we lost our ability to regulate blood sugar by overwhelming our bodies with cereal, bread and Ho-Ho's. This article is going to be about how to reverse this whole process.
Working With Local Employers: 10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
When your practice is about meeting needs, the market is wide open to you. But to meet human needs, you have to reach people where they are. Why not market where people spend 47.5 hours of their week, on average?
Proving East Asian Medicine
East Asian medical research focuses on quantitative means of proof. This affects the information obtained, thus what become considered best practices. I maintain that the world of East Asian medicine might also be understood through qualitative means.
An Argument for Preventive Care
Employee benefit costs continue rising and health-related expenses affect bottom line more than ever. Innovative ideas have stemmed from the need to address employee concerns within cost constraints.
Is Advice Alone Adequate for the Management of Neck Pain?
Over the course of the past dozen years or so, we've seen a continuing push toward greater self-reliance on the part of the patient in medical care. That translates into health care dollar savings for consumers and enhanced profits for insurers.
Adrenal Support Important for Coping With Prolonged Stress
When the famous physiologist Hans Selye  was conducting his original research on the stress response in the 1930s, he observed that prolonged and sustained stress eventually attacked the adrenal glands themselves.
Make Patient Financing a Part of Your Financial Policy
Many patients today are facing higher out-of-pocket costs, including increased deductibles and self-pay portions, that can make moving forward with chiropractic care a challenge.

Corporate Clutter
Eighteen boxes, seven piles, and 167 assorted objects found their way from our home to the curbside last weekend. In addition, books from three four-foot shelves were removed and taken to the University Book Give-Away Center.
Functional Exercise and Joint Movement
Fundamentally, exercise is about movement, and lots of it. The base foundation of functional movement is proper joint mobility and stability. Without adequate mobility and stability of joints in the kinetic chain, you end up with dysfunctional movement.
The Pulse of Aging
What would the pulse of aging look like? I use the term "look like" rather than "feel like" because I look at the pulses as the flow of qi through the organ systems rather than as a single or multiple of textures.
How to Chase a New Patient Away in 60 Minutes or Less, Part 2
For the rest of the "normal" chiropractors who don't have a super-sized, magnetic, Web 92.0, set-it-and-forget-it, make-money-while-you-sleep solution that fulfills your every new-patient dream, what are you to do to prevent yourself from chasing new patients away? Here are a few things to consider.
Microcurrent Treatment of Headaches
You will frequently have good success in relieving localized bodily pain with microcurrents by simply "circling the dragon"; that is, stimulating where it hurts. This is usually not the case, however, in the treatment of headaches.
Centering the Umbilical Pulse and Akabani Testing
This article will address two very specific and important treatment protocols: the Umbilical Pulse and the Akabani Test, both of which can be incorporated with any style of practice.
Plotting Your Course

It's not enough to want to make a living to do what you do. Nor is it enough to be extraordinarily talented - the world is full of passionate, talented failures. If you want to earn money with your passion, you'll be running a business, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to plot your course.


Posture Evaluations, Part 3: The Shoulder and Scapula
Let's discuss normal shoulder resting posture so we can determine if there is a link between a postural deviation and pain. Static postural analysis is performed before range-of-motion examinations, orthopedic testing, movement pattern assessments and palpation analysis.
Dealing with Dangerous Clients
Recently, a colleague in another city called to inform me that a patient had been vandalizing acupuncturists' offices around town and, they believed, slashing tires of acupuncturists' cars. He wanted to know if I knew anything about this person, and to warn me.
Cultural Competency in the Mormon Community
The federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) define cultural competency as "a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations.
Have You Ever Wondered How Chemotherapy Drugs Work? Part 2
A standard way to classify chemotherapy agents is to put them into one of two categories: cell cycle (phase-specific) and non-cell cycle (non-phase-specific). The cell-cycle drugs, have their greatest killing effect when a cell is dividing whereby certain drugs target specific cell phases.
Combating Joint Degeneration With Orthotics
Degenerative joint disease (osteoarthrosis) increases in frequency as we age. As society gets older, therefore, chiropractors will encounter more patients afflicted with painful joint conditions.
No Shortage of Happy Chiropractic Patients
The past 12 months have been good - very good - for the chiropractic profession in terms of data supporting the efficacy of chiropractic care. For starters, consider the Wellmark pilot study that suggests chiropractic reduces both costs and need for surgery.
News in Brief
News in Brief: ACC-RAC 2011: Call for Papers; National Adds Two Members to Its "Hall of Honor"; Latest Diplomate Acupuncture Exam Scheduled for October.
Taking a Stand Against Childhood Obesity
According to a 2005 report published by the Institute of Medicine, "Over the past three decades, [the rate of childhood obesity] has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2 to 5 years and adolescents aged 12 to 19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6 to 11 years.
TCM and Weight Management
According to the World Health Organization there are 1 billion people globally that are overweight and 300 million that are clinically obese. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey from 1999 to 2002, 65 percent of the U.S. population is obese or overweight and 30 percent are considered clinically obese.
Joint Motion and Motion Therapy
The use of joint motion for diagnostics and treatment is common in many professions. In fact, at the clinics I oversee, we have 12 orthopedic surgeons and one neurosurgeon, and all agree that they are seeing better outcomes with patients who have some form of motion retention after surgery.
A Chiropractic Skeptic No More
Anyone intimately involved in trying to make chiropractic more available to and accepted by the masses will be quick to tell you that changing perception is key. The following letter to the editor was submitted recently by a chiropractic patient who calls herself a former "Queen of Chiropractic Skeptics."
A Rose By Any Other Name
In his July column, Will Morris asks "What's In A Name?" Rather more than Shakespeare's Juliet would imagine; indeed, more things than are dreamt of in her philosophy, to invoke Hamlet.
Revving Up the Positive Press
Donate to the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (FCP) today and you could drive away in a 2011 Ford Mustang! The FCP has unveiled a new-car giveaway. Here's how you could win: Every 2010 contributor will be given a chance to win.
Research in Review: Manual Physical Therapy Techniques for LBP
Those who stay current with literature will be familiar with the low back pain clinical prediction rule (CPR) that has been in development for low back pain patients for the past few years. This important and unique work has been authored mainly by Cleland, Fritz, Childs, et al.
A Snapshot Of the Profession
Given the current debates taking place over the role complementary medicine (and acupuncture and Oriental medicine in particular) should play in the changing health care environment, it is important to understand where the profession is currently at.
As Time Goes By
I celebrated my 40-year anniversary in the field this summer. It was astounding to contemplate how my entire life has been built around learning, practicing, promoting, fighting for, and teaching this medicine all over the world. I have reminisced about the decades of struggle, passion, commitment and reward.

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Massage Today
March, 2006, Vol. 06, Issue 03

Massage Effective in Treating Common Ailments

By Julie Engebretson

An increasing amount of research suggests that massage helps to ease or prevent common ailments that are most often treated with prescription drugs and/or extended hospitalization. Some of the most surprising research supports the effectiveness of massage therapy in reinforcing psychological stability and its positive effects on preterm infants.

Studies show that massage therapy can reduce anxiety and depression associated with anorexia and bulimia, post traumatic stress disorder, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Patients suffering from eating disorders who received massage therapy two times a week for a little over a month experienced a decrease in anxiety, depression, and body dissatisfaction, while their dopamine levels increased.1,2 Survivors of the 1996 Hurricane Andrew underwent massage therapy to treat symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. They also experienced decreased anxiety and depression, and an decrease in cortisol (stress hormone levels).3 And following 10 days of massage therapy, chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers experienced fewer somatic symptoms, and less difficulty sleeping as cortisol levels decreased and dopamine levels increased.4

Massage also has affected the weight gain, sleep quality, and overall development of preterm infants. Infants who were massaged before sleeping, had a tendency to fall asleep more quickly and exhibited more consistent sleeping patterns than infants who were not massaged.6 After eight months, the same infants who received massage therapy as newborns displayed optimal cognitive and motor control development.7

References

  1. Hart, S, et al. Anorexia symptoms are reduced by massage therapy. Eating Disorders. 9; 2001; 289-299.
  2. Field, T, et al. Bulimic adolescents benefit from massage therapy. Adolescence. 33; 1998; 555-563.
  3. Field, T., et al. Alleviating posttraumatic stress in children following Hurricane Andrew. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 17; 1996; 37-50.
  4. Field, T., et al. Chronic fatigue syndrome: Massage therapy effects on depression and somatic symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome. Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. 3;1999;108-112.
  5. Scafidi, F, et al. Effects of tactile/kinesthetic stimulation on the clinical course and sleep/wake behavior of preterm neonates. Infant Behavior and Development. 9; 1986; 91-105.
  6. Scafidi, F, et al. Massage of preterm newborns to improve growth and development. Pediatric Nursing. 13; 1987; 285-387.

 

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