Other ways exploring alternative medicine 2

							SECTION E., PAGE 2


  Medicine
  Continued from Page 1
Toledo last year found a similar trend
here.
   When Jan Young, a Toledo Hospital
nurse, polled patients at the hospital's
W.W. Knight Family Practice Center
for two weeks, she found that 39.4 per
cent of adults said they had tried some
kind of alternative treatment, including
hypnosis, herbal medicine, spiritual
healing, folk remedies, and lifestyle
diets.
   Only 22 per cent of them, however,
had told their doctors they were doing
so.
   A wide spectrum of alternative
treatments are available in northwest
Ohio, from the well-known therapies
like acupuncture, chiropractic, and
vitamin therapy, to practices some
people may already be doing without
being aware of their health effects, such
as yoga and meditation, to lesser
known techniques, like biofeedback
and healing touch.
   Some of the practices are based on
unfamiliar concepts.
   Healing touch, for example, works
on a person's energy field, what
Chinese       medicine      calls   "chi."
                                                                                                       BLADE PHOTO BY DON SIMMONS
Practitioners say disruptions or
blockages in the field lead to illness.      Dr. Elizabeth Chen Christenson treats an acupuncture patient.
   "You have to keep the energy freely          Dr. Elkhatib, an internist and          she offers patients a combination of
flowing so the body's own healing            chairman of the newly formed Ad-           western and eastern medicine.
processes can work," said Artemis            visory Board on Alternative Medicine,         The main difference between the
Gross, a registered nurse who practices      a local group of doctors, nurses, and      two is that western medicine focuses on
healing touch and teaches it at              researchers promoting education about      fixing symptoms whereas eastern
Riverside Hospital.                          complementary       techniques,     said   medicine looks for the underlying
   In healing touch, the practitioner        western medicine needs to think more       causes of illness and tries to support the
passes her hands a few inches above          broadly about what constitutes "proof"     body's own healing mechanisms. In this
the patient's body (despite the name,        that a technique works.                    context, illness is believed to occur
there is no touch involved, and unlike          "The scientific method is great, and    when those mechanisms become
in massage, the patient remains              it has served us well for 300 years. But   impaired. Restore them, and you
clothed).                                    there are so many things that,             strengthen the body's ability to take
   She appears to smooth the field like a    according to our current knowledge,        care of itself.
chambermaid smoothing wrinkles out           we can't fit into the scientific method,      Most important in this approach, Dr.
of a sheet. Then she flicks her fingers      like spiritual practices, and prayer,      Christenson said, is to treat patients
as if getting rid of excess water.           positive thinking. There is no way you     holistically, to look at the whole person
   When she feels a blockage, she holds      can quantify the effects under the sci-    — his physical, mental, emotional, and
her hands above it to get the energy         entific method," he said.                  spiritual conditions, as well as his
flowing again.                                  Dr. Elizabeth Chen Christenson is a     chemical and nutritional makeups, all
   Penny Horsely, of Toledo, who heard       pathologist who started studying           of which contribute to health.
about healing touch from a friend at         acupuncture after hearing a lecture
church, uses it to relieve pain in her       about it at the Medical College of Ohio       "Changing Concepts in Health and
knee, which has been operated on six         while she was doing a family practice      Healing" is open to the public. Dr.
times.                                       residency at Mercy Hospital.               Eisenberg's speech at the Franciscan
   Many critics reject alternative              After studying acupuncture at the       Center Thursday, 7 to 8:30 p.m., is
medicine because few of the practices        University of California at Los            free. The conference itself, at the
have undergone the types of rigorous         Angeles, Dr. Christenson returned to       Holiday Inn French Quarter in
trials that have given the stamp of                                                     Perrysburg all day Friday. costs $65.
                                             Toledo to set up the CHI Medical
approval to conventional treatments,         Center       (Comprehensive       Health
like drugs and surgical procedures.          Innovations) in Maumee, where