Bmc Complem Altern M
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Bmc Complem Altern M · Jun 2008
Physician and patient attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine in obstetrics and gynecology.
In the U.S., complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is most prevalent among reproductive age, educated women. We sought to determine general attitudes and approaches to CAM among obstetric and gynecology patients and physicians. ⋯ Although obstetrics/gynecology physicians and patients have a positive attitude towards CAM, physician and patients' view of the most effective CAM therapies were incongruent. Obstetrician/gynecologists should routinely ask their patients about their use of CAM with the goal of providing responsible, evidence-based advice to optimize patient care.
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Bmc Complem Altern M · Apr 2008
Does pharmaceutical advertising affect journal publication about dietary supplements?
Advertising affects consumer and prescriber behaviors. The relationship between pharmaceutical advertising and journals' publication of articles regarding dietary supplements (DS) is unknown. ⋯ These data are consistent with the hypothesis that increased pharmaceutical advertising is associated with publishing fewer articles about DS and publishing more articles with conclusions that DS are unsafe. Additional research is needed to test alternative hypotheses for these findings in a larger sample of more diverse journals.
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Bmc Complem Altern M · Jan 2008
Comparative StudyPatient satisfaction of primary care for musculoskeletal diseases: a comparison between Neural Therapy and conventional medicine.
The main objective of this study was to assess and compare patient satisfaction with Neural Therapy (NT) and conventional medicine (COM) in primary care for musculoskeletal diseases. ⋯ Our findings show a significantly higher treatment and care-related patient satisfaction with primary care for musculoskeletal diseases provided by physicians practising Neural Therapy.
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Bmc Complem Altern M · Jan 2008
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyStudy protocol for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial in general practice investigating the effectiveness of acupuncture against migraine.
Migraine is a chronic neurologic disease that can severely affect the patient's quality of life. Although in recent years many randomised studies have been carried out to investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for migraine, it remains a controversial issue. Our aim is to determine whether acupuncture, applied under real conditions of clinical practice in the area of primary healthcare, is more effective than conventional treatment. ⋯ This trial will contribute to available evidence on acupuncture for the treatment of migraine. The primary endpoint is the difference in the number of days with migraine among the three groups, between the baseline period (the 4 weeks prior to the start of treatment) and the period from weeks 9 to 12. As a secondary aspect, we shall record the index of laterality and the percentage of change in the mean count per pixel in each region of interest measured by the brain perfusion tomography, performed on a subsample of the patients within the real and sham acupuncture groups.
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Bmc Complem Altern M · Jan 2008
Randomized Controlled TrialThe effect of acupuncture duration on analgesia and peripheral sensory thresholds.
Acupuncture provides a means of peripheral stimulation for pain relief. However, the detailed neuronal mechanisms by which acupuncture relieves pain are still poorly understood and information regarding optimal treatment settings is still inadequate. Previous studies with a short burst of unilateral electroacupuncture (EA) in the Tendinomuscular Meridians (TMM) treatment model for pain demonstrated a transient dermatomally correlated bilateral analgesic effect with corresponding peripheral modality-specific sensory threshold alterations. However, the impact of EA duration on the analgesic effect in this particular treatment model is unknown. To obtain mechanistically and clinically important information regarding EA analgesia, this current prospective cross-over study assesses the effects of EA duration on analgesia and thermal sensory thresholds in the TMM treatment model. ⋯ Longer durations of EA stimulation provide a more sustainable analgesic benefit to hot noxious stimulation than a shorter duration of stimulation. The increase of cold threshold with sustained warm threshold temperature elevation as observed in the longer durations of EA suggests that as the duration of EA lengthened, there is a gradual shifting from an initial predominantly spinally mediated analgesic effect to a supraspinally mediated modulatory mechanism of thermal pain. The 15-minute stimulation appeared to be the optimal setting for treating acute pain in the lower extremities.