Alternative health practices show benefits for treating pain

AUSTIN, Tex., May 19, 20011 -- A variety of complementary and alternative health practices —including meditation and relaxation techniques, manual therapies such as massage and spinal manipulation, meditative exercise forms such as yoga, Tai Chi, and ancient health practices such as acupuncture—show promise for contributing to the management of pain according to research presented today at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Pain Society, www.ampainsoc.org.

In her keynote address to pain clinicians attending the APS conference, Josephine Briggs, MD, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health said that these approaches are widely used by Americans as part of management of painful conditions including headache, back or neck pain, and arthritic or other musculoskeletal pain.

“Much of health care involves helping people find solutions for tough problems like pain. I think all physicians are well aware of how difficult it is to manage chronic pain patients,” said Briggs. “For example, with back pain we see that large numbers of patients are turning to these approaches with the hope of decreasing discomfort, improving function and quality-of-life, and minimizing side effects of pharmacologic treatments.”

Read more: http://www.chiroeco.com/chiropractic/news/11256/851/alternative%20health%20practices%20show%20benefits%20for%20treating%20pain/