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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – The disproportionate growth of the senior population in the United States has created a rise in chronic conditions, greater demand for pain relief, overuse of pharmaceuticals and high prescription expenditures at a time when the physician shortage threatens longer waiting times and compromised quality of care.[1]
Fortunately, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), which includes chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, nutritional medicine, naturopathy, herbalism, Ayurveda, Reiki, laser therapy and electrotherapy, offers less expensive, drug-free choices for pain relief.
CAM therapies encourage the natural healing ability of the body and focus on preventing disease rather than simply treating disease. A growing number of traditional healthcare professionals have begun to embrace CAM as part of their treatment programs for its proven benefits, including pain and injury prevention, post-surgical treatment and non-invasive pain relief.
The Mayo Clinic uses massage therapy for post-surgical treatment,[2] and California now allows chiropractic services for reimbursement when they are provided in federally qualified health centers (FQHC) and rural health clinics (RHC) — further demonstrating the mainstream acceptance of chiropractic.[3]
CAM helps to move patients toward complete wellness, enabling them to discover and understand the hidden causes of health issues, creating a customized and comprehensive treatment plan, and investing in healthy aging to achieve lower disability rates down the road.
Relieving Pain Across the Healthcare Continuum
Paradoxically, advances in medicine that have led to greater survival rates among patients with cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, stroke, traumatic brain injury and many other diseases have increased the number of people living with chronic pain.
Studies show that certain populations, including seniors, bear a significantly greater burden of chronic pain. The point of pain management is to improve a patient’s quality of life. Given the high cost of pain in human lives, dollars and social consequences, CAM presents a way to relieve pain across the healthcare continuum.
CAM options for pain relief include:
Chiropractic: Chiropractic treatment of neck and back pain, which is a common concern among older adults, provides more relief than over-the-counter drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen. After 12 weeks of chiropractic treatment more than half of the individuals in one study reported at least 75 percent reduction in pain compared with one-third in the drug group. A year later more than 50 percent of those treated with chiropractic reported significant decrease in pain, while the patients taking pain killers had upped their dosage during the same period.[4]
Massage Therapy: Studies show that massage therapy increases endorphins and serotonin, chemicals that act as natural painkillers and mood regulators. Massage therapy also reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and turns off genes associated with inflammation and its associated pain, which in turn relieves muscle soreness.[5] Moderate to deep pressure massage can activate the vagus nerve which regulates heartbeat, helping aging Americans experience pain relief for a variety of conditions.
Studies also show that massage helps reduce anxiety, pain and nausea in cancer patients by 44 percent, while raising the level of cancer-fighting white blood cells.[6]
Acupuncture: Acupuncture relieves a wide range of pain conditions that impact seniors, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, headache, low back pain, myofascial pain and osteoarthritis.[7] One study found that during acupuncture trials for patients with chronic low back pain, only 15 percent of subjects who received acupuncture treatment needed extra pain medication, compared with 34 percent who were receiving placebo treatments, and 59 percent receiving conventional therapy. Furthermore, long-term pain reduction was achieved more effectively in subjects who received either real or placebo acupuncture versus those who received conventional therapy.[8]
The Future of CAM
CAM’s growing popularity presents an opportunity to improve conventional medicine and mitigate a number of issues that aging baby boomers will face.[9] Toward that end, U.S. medical schools are developing CAM course work, and managed care organizations are providing some coverage for CAM therapies. A study by Harvard Medical School researchers, looking at trends over the past half-century, indicates that CAM will play a role in the U.S. healthcare system for the foreseeable future – and demand for drug-free, less costly alternatives to conventional medicine will continue to grow.[10]
Kray Kibler, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, Scrip Companies, first joined Scrip in May 2006, gaining broad and deep experience throughout the business with responsibility for oversight of the Company’s financial, IT, human resource, customer service, distribution operations and field/corporate sales.
[1] Steinbrook, Robert; Private Health Care in Canada; New England Journal of Medicine, 2006; http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp068064; accessed September 5, 2014.
[2] Forrester, Leslie; Why Massage Should Be Part of Your Daily Life; Quality Life Massage Therapy; Jan. 7, 2013; http://www.qualitylifemassagetherapy.com/348/; accessed March 19, 2014.
[3] Department of Health Care Services; Stakeholder Communication Updates; http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/formsandpubs/publications/opa/Documents/Stakeholder%20Communication%20Updates/StakeholdercommunicationOctober2013.pdf; accessed September 4, 2014.
[4] Walsh, Bryan; Alternative Medicine: Your guide to stress relief, healing, nutrition and more; 2014; TIME Magazine.
[5] Walsh, 2014.
[6] Walsh, 2014.
[7] National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Acupuncture for Pain; http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/acupuncture-for-pain.htm; accessed March 19, 2014.
[8] Braunstein, Glenn; Evaluating the Clinical Effectiveness of Acupuncture
Huffington Post; October 11, 2010; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/evaluating-the-clinical-e_b_758343.html; accessed March 19, 2014.
[9] Passarelli, Tonya; Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States; MPHP 439; Case Western Reserve University; April 2008; http://www.cwru.edu/med/epidbio/mphp439/complimentary_meds.pdf; accessed April 28, 2014.
[10] Harvard Medical School; About.com; Mental Health; http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0801/blcam801.htm; accessed August 26, 2014.
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