Homeopathic medical practice: Long-term results of a cohort study with 3981 patients

Homeopathy chronic insomnia The homeopathic simillimum treatment of primary insomnia was effective compared to placebo..<br /> Abstract<br /> Background: On the range of diagnoses, course of treatment, and long-term outcome in patients<br /> who chose to receive homeopathic medical treatment very little is known. We investigated<br /> homeopathic practice in an industrialized country under everyday conditions.<br /> Methods: In a prospective, multicentre cohort study with 103 primary care practices with<br /> additional specialisation in homeopathy in Germany and Switzerland, data from all patients (age >1<br /> year) consulting the physician for the first time were observed. The main outcome measures were:<br /> Patient and physician assessments (numeric rating scales from 0 to 10) and quality of life at baseline,<br /> and after 3, 12, and 24 months.<br /> Results: A total of 3,981 patients were studied including 2,851 adults (29% men, mean age 42.5 ±<br /> 13.1 years; 71% women, 39.9 ± 12.4 years) and 1,130 children (52% boys, 6.5 ± 3.9 years; 48% girls,<br /> 7.0 ± 4.3 years). Ninety-seven percent of all diagnoses were chronic with an average duration of<br /> 8.8 ± 8 years. The most frequent diagnoses were allergic rhinitis in men, headache in women, and<br /> atopic dermatitis in children. Disease severity decreased significantly (p < 0.001) between baseline and 24 months (adults from 6.2 ± 1.7 to 3.0 ± 2.2; children from 6.1 ± 1.8 to 2.2 ± 1.9). Physicians' assessments yielded similar results. For adults and young children, major improvements were observed for quality of life, whereas no changes were seen in adolescents. Younger age and more severe disease at baseline were factors predictive of better therapeutic success. Conclusion: Disease severity and quality of life demonstrated marked and sustained improvements following homeopathic treatment period. Our findings indicate that homeopathic medical therapy may play a beneficial role in the long-term care of patients with chronic diseases. Background Homeopathy is one of the most frequently used and controversial systems of complementary and alternative medicine. It is based on the 'principle of similars', whereby highly diluted preparations of substances that cause symptoms in healthy individuals are used to stimulate healing in patients who have similar symptoms when ill [1]. When a single homeopathic remedy is selected based on a patient's total symptom picture, it is called 'classical' homeopathy [2]. According to a survey in the US [3], the proportion of patients obtaining homeopathic care has quadrupled in the last seven years. A survey in Britain [4] Published: 03 November 2005 BMC Public Health 2005, 5:115 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-5-115 Received: 09 May 2005 Accepted: 03 November 2005 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/115 © 2005 Witt et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited <span class="fullpost"> \<br /> here is the download link of the article:<a href="http://jumbofiles.com/7rgonclyuu8n">3981 paptients.pdf - 384.2 Kb</a><br /> </span>

Homeopathic medical practice: Long-term results of a cohort study with 3981 patients

Homeopathy chronic insomnia The homeopathic simillimum treatment of primary insomnia was effective compared to placebo.. Abstract Backgrou...

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