Alternative Medicine Reduces Pain and Tension in Heart Surgery Patients

[RedOnce]

First of Its Kind Study Shows Complimentary Alternative Medicine Reduces Pain and Tension in Heart Surgery Patients

March 15, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2006--A recent study led by Vibhu R. Kshettry, MD, a cardiovascular surgeon from the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, shows that those patients who receive complimentary alternative medical therapies, including music, massage and guided imagery, before and after open heart surgery experience less pain and tension during recovery than patients who receive standard care.

The study, which was funded by the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation and is published in Annals of Thoracic Surgeons, is believed to be the first randomized study of complimentary alternative therapy in heart surgery patients. It included 104 men and women who were randomly divided into two groups--one that received alternative therapies at critical points in the preoperative and recovery periods, and one that received standard care.

"Our study demonstrates the importance of incorporating complimentary alternative therapies into the care of heart surgery patients," said Kshettry. "Heart surgery is often associated with deep, visceral postoperative pain that, if left untreated, can compromise recovery and contribute to patient distress. Alternative therapies reduce that pain."

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060315005179&newsLang=en

[Warpy]

1. So do drugs, something I always used liberally

and the thing I always hated worse than anything else was following a drug phobic nurse who had undermedicated her patients.

I think using this stuff as adjunctive therapy is fine and probably makes folks feel a lot better.

Where it runs into trouble is with practitioners telling people they don't need that surgery, they can get all better with herbs/diet/massage/vitamins/prayer. Anyone who suggests foregoing standard treatment for potentially life threatening conditions is a QUACK.

[RedOnce]

2. Yes, of course drugs work. I think the main point is...

that "this stuff" now has some demonstrated efficacy.

I agree with your last sentence.

[salvorhardin]

3. Amazing what they're calling alternative therapy now

Music, massage and guided imagery (sometimes known as putting a patient at ease)... Aren't these what used to be called simple "patient care"? I bet if the heart surgeon pops around for a visit before hand to talk to the patient and reassure them about the surgery that would also lead to less pain.

[Warpy]

5. Yeah, we used to give back rubs and stuff like that

before hospitals went cost cutting crazy, before they discharged any patient who could barely walk, drains and all, and left us with the sickest of the sick to care for with fewer and fewer people to do it, before they fired the lab techs, the housekeeping staff, the transport workers, the "extra" nursing assistants and anybody else who used to free us up to do bedside care, and before the paperwork load mulitiplied to the point we could spend an entire shift on it and still not get it all done to the satisfaction of the hospital legal staff.

Yeah, medicine was a whole lot different before business and accounting and stockholders and the sucking out of profit took over.

[RedOnce]

6. My wife was working a COPD floor when this transition began...

the increase in her stress was enormous and she complained that patient care suffered dramatically as a result of these cost cutting moves.

[Orrex]

7. "Aren't these what used to be called simple "patient care"?"

Bingo! These are basic tools of "conventional" medicine and have been in use for decades, but because they don't generally require a prescription, they can be readily co-opted by "alternative" practitioners and then put forth as "proof" that alternative therapies work.

When I have a cold, I often put a warm cloth on my forehead, and I feel somewhat better thereafter. Is that an alternative therapy?

[RedOnce]

8. OK, sure, even chicken soup! The label isn't important...

[Orrex]

9. I think that it might be, though

If the "alternative" umbrella covers everything from "chicken soup to make you feel better" to "dowsing tumors with a hickory switch," then such vaguely defined parameters invite abuse.

But I'll offer this: if alternative practitioners step up and admit that the countless metaphysical "energy" therapies do not actually involving the correcting of chi or prana or whatever, even if they do make the patient feel better, then I'll concede that "alternative" therapies are of some benefit.

Otherwise, they're fair game to be dissed as quacks and frauds.

[salvorhardin]

12. But that would decrease their marketing potential

I mean, if you can't market your "therapeutic touch" as "channeling pure quantum energies" and instead are forced to market it as "Aunt Jenny's super-duper backrub" then where does that get you? I can see as how that would eat into the book sales and speaking engagements.

[RedOnce]

13. I guess the broader "alternative" umbrella scoops up...

everything from what mom used to do, to what allopathic medicine now ignores, to herbs, to "energy" therapies for which no scientific proof exists, etc., etc. and yes, even to outright fraud.

It's a very broad term and buyer beware. However, the good news is that placebo effect is powerful (often ignored by allopathic medicine except when it inteferes with drug studies) and best of all, Alternative treatments don't often cause direct harm and they're often inexpensive in comparison to conventional treatments.

Many of the "energy" therapies were developed thousands of years ago. Chi or prana or whatever was probably just a way to name and conceptualize something that was otherwise unexplainable. Perhaps a way to help the patient put placebo effect to positive use.

[Celebration]

10. well they were dropped

These methods *were* part of medicine but were dropped. So, someone had to pick up the ball and run with it, don't you think?

[Orrex]

11. Dropped? By whom?

I'm being serious--were they dropped altogether, or did just the doctors stop using them?

[Celebration]

14. stopped using them

You tell me. I don't know what happened. Because there are so many time and money pressure these *unimportant* measures just seemed to be dropped. It may have to do with increasing specialization, too. So now they are being rediscovered, it seems.

I actually think there are some measures that can be taken that are less labor intensive than reiki or massage, and would fit more into today's low cost spend as little time with the patient as possible model. See the study on binaural beats for an example of what I am talking about.

I don't care if *what* anyone calls it--conventional, unconventional, alternative, or hocus pocus. Categorizations like that mean nothing to me. Binaural beats work for relaxation purposes, they are cost effective, and they should be integrated into patient management, IMHO.

[Celebration]

4. binaural beats

They should probably try imbedding the music with binaural beats and see what happens, as they did in this study on pre-operative anxiety--

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16115248&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

Anaesthesia. 2005 Sep;60(9):874-7.

A prospective, randomised, controlled study examining binaural beat audio and pre-operative anxiety in patients undergoing general anaesthesia for day case surgery.

Padmanabhan R, Hildreth AJ, Laws D.

Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, SR4 7TP, UK.

Pre-operative anxiety is common and often significant. Ambulatory surgery challenges our pre-operative goal of an anxiety-free patient by requiring people to be 'street ready' within a brief period of time after surgery. Recently, it has been demonstrated that music can be used successfully to relieve patient anxiety before operations, and that audio embedded with tones that create binaural beats within the brain of the listener decreases subjective levels of anxiety in patients with chronic anxiety states. We measured anxiety with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaire and compared binaural beat audio (Binaural Group) with an identical soundtrack but without these added tones (Audio Group) and with a third group who received no specific intervention (No Intervention Group). Mean <95% confidence intervals> decreases in anxiety scores were 26.3%<19-33%> in the Binaural Group (p = 0.001 vs. Audio Group, p < 0.0001 vs. No Intervention Group), 11.1%<6-16%> in the Audio Group (p = 0.15 vs. No Intervention Group) and 3.8%<0-7%> in the No Intervention Group. Binaural beat audio has the potential to decrease acute pre-operative anxiety significantly.


PMID: 16115248