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By
Megan Malugani Shark cartilage, acupuncture, desert flower essences—the nation’s most respected medical research institutions are putting alternative medicine to the test with the same rigor once reserved for conventional medicine. Although it would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, alternative medicine has worked its way into the mainstream of scientific research. "It’s not just a pocket of researchers conducting these studies. It’s happening in prestigious research centers throughout the country," said Lisa A. Seldomridge, PhD, RN, chair and associate professor in the department of nursing at Salisbury State University in Maryland. University of Maryland researchers are conducting a study of the effects of acupuncture on arthritis pain, and Duke University is comparing St. John’s wort to Zoloft in the treatment of depression. Among hundreds of other studies, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is testing shark cartilage as a treatment for lung cancer while several medical schools, including Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Davis, are testing an extract of ginkgo biloba for the prevention of dementia in the elderly. Such research is spurring a greater acceptance of complementary and alternative therapies among conventional healthcare practitioners, said Charlotte Eliopoulos, PhD, MPH, RN, president-elect of the American Holistic Nurses’ Association and president of the Health Education Network in Baltimore County, Md. "The scientific evidence supporting many complementary therapies can’t be ignored anymore," Eliopoulos said. Gathering evidence Both a landmark study recognizing the enormous popularity of alternative medicine and the government’s creation of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have helped drive alternative medicine into the mainstream of scientific research. A study in the November 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association chronicled the increasing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine and highlighted the need for scientifically valid information about its potential risks and benefits to consumers. The study, conducted by David Eisenberg, MD, director of the Center for Alternative Medicine Research and Education at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, showed that four out of 10 Americans used alternative therapies in 1997. According to the study, total visits to alternative medicine practitioners increased by almost 50 percent between 1990 and 1997, and Americans paid an estimated $21.2 billion for services provided by alternative medicine practitioners—$12.2 billion of which was out-of-pocket. The study revealed not only the high level of consumer demand for alternative therapies, but also consumers’ willingness to pay for them, said Ann Ameling, MSN, RN, professor of psychiatric mental health nursing at the Yale School of Nursing in New Haven, Conn. "People want this so much that they’ll pay for it," Ameling said. "The more entrepreneurial people in medicine have seen that there is a huge industry in this, and they’re responding." Turning point Another force driving alternative medicine into the mainstream of national research was the establishment of a center at the NIH devoted to complementary and alternative medicine. The Office of Alternative Medicine was established by a congressional mandate as part of the NIH in 1992, with only $2 million in funding. In 1998, Congress upgraded the office, renaming it the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and its yearly budget has grown to $68 million. "The center has garnered a lot of attention, and as a scientist there is now more grant funding available" for studying complementary therapies, said Mary Koithan, PhD, RN, certified specialist and assistant professor of nursing at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is researching desert flower essences. "I do think the NIH gives us some credibility and will add to our understanding of complementary therapies," she said. Koithan, who remembers when studies relating to therapeutic touch were branded "witchcraft," is hopeful that NCCAM-sponsored research will aid in the understanding of a broad range of complementary therapies and medicine. Chain reaction The boom in complementary and alternative medicine is not only having a major effect on nurse researchers, but also on practicing nurses and nursing students. "Lots of nurses are including [alternative medicine] in their practices in a major way by talking to patients and clients about alternatives, offering education, and referring patients to credible sources for more information," Seldomridge said. "It’s finding its way into mainstream nursing care through changes in nursing school curricula and through how we ask patients questions about how they care for themselves," she said. Even students at the most conventional nursing schools are getting exposed to complementary and alternative medicine, whether they learn about it in class or not. In the 1996 editions of adult health and critical care textbooks, there was no mention of complementary therapies, Seldomridge noted. But in the 1999 and 2000 versions, there are "pages and pages on complementary therapies for just about any kind of disease conditions you can imagine," she said. |
