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What Is Integrative Medicine?
At age 68, Martha McInnis has had her share of health woes: breast cancer, high cholesterol, clogged arteries, osteoporosis and scoliosis—curvature of the spine. Once a year she journeys from her home in Alabama to the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina where an internist, endocrinologist and other specialists monitor her with blood tests, X-rays, bone scans and other tests.But McInnis knows that she's more than the sum of her illnesses. When her checkup ends, she heads for the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, where she has learned about nutrition, fitness, yoga, tai chi, meditation and other practices she says have helped her to live better. "I became an avid tai chi person," she says. "I'm a type A personality. I knew I had to do something about my lifestyle. I had to bring myself down to a type B." Many Americans have never heard of integrative medicine, but this holistic movement has left its imprint on many of the nation's hospitals, universities and medical schools. Treating the Whole Person Both doctors and patients alike are bonding with the philosophy of integrative medicine and its whole-person approach—designed to treat the person, not just the disease. IM, as it's often called, depends on a partnership between the patient and the doctor, where the goal is to treat the mind, body and spirit, all at the same time. While some of the therapies used may be nonconventional, a guiding principle within integrative medicine is to use therapies that have some high-quality evidence to support them.
SOURCES: Esther Sternberg, MD, director, Integrative Neural Immune Program; chief of section on neuroendocrine immunology and behavior, National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health. Tracy Gaudet, MD, director, Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, Duke University. Susan Folkman, PhD, director, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; chairwoman, Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. Tom Delbanco, MD, professor of general medicine and primary care, Harvard Medical School. Eisenberg, D.M. The New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 28, 1993; vol 328: pp 246-252. Bent, S. The New England Journal of Medicine, Feb. 9, 2006; vol 354: pp 557-566. American Hospital Association statistics book, 2004. Oscher Center for Integrative Medicine web site. ClinicalTrials.gov web site: "Effect of Acupuncture on Human Brain Activity;" "Enhancing Non-Pharmacologic Therapy for Incontinence;" Valerian to Improve Sleep in Patients With Parkinson's Disease.
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