Still Too
Many Harms in Health Care
According to a recent study:
Avoidable
harm to patients is still too high in healthcare in the UK and across the globe
— making safety a top healthcare priority for providers and policy makers
alike. These are the findings of two reports launched today by researchers from
Imperial College London. (Imperial College London. Too many avoidable errors in
patient care, says report: Avoidable harm to patients is still too high in
healthcare in the UK and across the globe. Science Daily. 7 March 2016)
I just wrote a blog about how we are stuck in a healthcare model that
isn’t working. What is needed is true integration of medicine with access to different
tools and the formation of a therapeutic partnership between the patient and
the doctor. These are critical for our healthcare system to thrive. I also
reported on all the top health and integrative medicines in March, and, of
course, mentioning the release of my book,
BreakFree Medicine. (Read all about this here.)
Another of the big topics in the news was the epidemic of pain drug
abuse. Below are a few excerpts to summarize the issue and how integrative and
alternative therapies may be able to fill a gap.
Feds Aim
to Cut Painkiller Drug Abuse
Earlier this month, the epidemic of painkiller drug abuse and the CDC
advisory was discussed:
Hoping to
stem an epidemic of drug abuse tied to prescription narcotic painkillers such
as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin, federal officials on Tuesday issued tough
new prescribing guidelines to the nation’s doctors.The new
advisory, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stresses
that doctors — especially primary care physicians — should try to avoid these
addictive “opioid” painkillers whenever possible for patients with
most forms of chronic pain. (Mundell and Reinburg. CDC Issues Tough New
Guidelines on Use of Prescription Painkillers. Health Day News. March 15, 2016.)
New
Warning on Opioid Drugs
Health Day recently
reported on a new warning on narcotics:
Hoping to
curb a national epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse, U.S. officials on
Tuesday announced that certain drugs will get new “boxed warnings”
about the dangers of misuse.The move by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comes one week after the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention announced tough new guidelines to doctors for
“opioid” drugs such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin. (Mundell and
Reinburg. FDA Orders Warning Labels on Prescription Narcotic Painkillers.
Health Day News. March 22, 2016. )
Making
Generic Opioids Less Likely to Be Abused, FDA
Furthermore, in a recent report by Health
Day, the authors discuss another attempt to deter painkiller drug abuse:
Continuing
their push to combat the nation’s epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse,
U.S. officials on Thursday urged generic drug makers to take steps to redesign
potent drugs such as hydrocodone and oxycodone to make them harder to abuse.U.S. Food
and Drug Administration officials said they were encouraging the generic drug
industry to develop pain medicines with “abuse-deterrent properties.”
For instance, this would make it harder to crush a tablet to snort the contents
or dissolve a capsule to inject its ingredients. (Reinburg. FDA Wants Generic
Narcotic Painkillers to Be Abuse-Deterrent. Health Day News. March 24, 2016.)
How
Meditation Can Help Pain and Fill the Gap
Two studies highlighted the role of the mind-body connection in
connecting meditation to improvements in pain. According to Science Daily:
In this randomized, double-blinded
study, 78 healthy, pain-free volunteers were divided into four groups for the
four-day (20 minutes per day) trial. The groups consisted of: meditation plus
naloxone; non-meditation control plus naloxone; meditation plus saline placebo;
or non-meditation control plus saline placebo…Zeidan found that the
participants’ pain ratings were reduced by 24 percent from the baseline
measurement in the meditation group that received the naloxone. This is
important because it showed that even when the body’s opioid receptors were
chemically blocked, meditation still was able to significantly reduce pain by
using a different pathway, he said. Pain ratings also were reduced by 21
percent in the meditation group that received the placebo-saline injection. (Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Mindfulness meditation provides opioid-free pain relief, study finds. Science
Daily. 15 March 2016.)
Meditation for Pain 2
Health Day reports:
Meditation may work better than
painkillers when it comes to soothing chronic low back pain, a new clinical
trial suggests. The study found that a program called mindfulness-based stress
reduction (MBSR) beat standard medical care for managing low back pain.After one year, people who attended
MBSR classes were more than 40 percent likely to show “meaningful”
improvements in their pain and daily activities compared to people who sought
conventional care for their aching backs. (Norton. Meditation May Help Ease Chronic Low Back Pain. Health Day News. March 22, 2016.)
Mood- Enhancing Approaches with
Alternative Medicine
Drumming for Depression and Dropping
Inflammation
PLoS One Reports:
Growing numbers of mental health
organizations are developing community music-making interventions for service
users; however, to date there has been little research into their efficacy or
mechanisms of effect. This study was an exploratory examination of whether 10
weeks of group drumming could improve depression, anxiety and social resilience
among service users compared with a non-music control group (with participants
allocated to group by geographical location.) Significant improvements were
found in the drumming group but not the control group: by week 6 there were
decreases in depression (-2.14 SE 0.50 CI -3.16 to -1.11) and increases in
social resilience (7.69 SE 2.00 CI 3.60 to 11.78), and by week 10 these had
further improved (depression: -3.41 SE 0.62 CI -4.68 to -2.15; social
resilience: 10.59 SE 1.78 CI 6.94 to 14.24) alongside significant improvements
in anxiety (-2.21 SE 0.50 CI -3.24 to -1.19) and mental wellbeing (6.14 SE 0.92
CI 4.25 to 8.04). All significant changes were maintained at 3 months
follow-up. Furthermore, it is now recognised that many mental health conditions
are characterised by underlying inflammatory immune responses. Consequently,
participants in the drumming group also provided saliva samples to test for
cortisol and the cytokines interleukin (IL) 4, IL6, IL17, tumour necrosis
factor alpha (TNFα), and monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP) 1. Across the
10 weeks there was a shift away from a pro-inflammatory towards an
anti-inflammatory immune profile. Consequently, this study demonstrates the
psychological benefits of group drumming and also suggests underlying biological
effects, supporting its therapeutic potential for mental health. (Fancourt D, Perkins R, Ascenso S,
Carvalho LA, Steptoe A, Williamon A. Effects of Group Drumming Interventions on
Anxiety, Depression, Social Resilience and Inflammatory Immune Response among
Mental Health Service Users. PLoS ONE.
2016; 11(3): e0151136. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151136)
Combining Exercise and Meditation for
Mood Boost
Mens Journal reports:
Regular aerobic exercise and
meditation are both proven mood boosters, but done together, they’re extra
effective at combating depression. In the first study ever to examine the two
therapies in tandem, the combination approach reduced symptoms of clinical
depression by an astounding 40 percent. (Junttti, M.The Insane Power of Combining
Exercise and Meditation. Mens Journal. 2016.
)
Summary: The example of pain abuse (and how this can
lead to mood issues) is one way to demonstrate how integrative medicine may
fill a gap in conventional medicine. Rather than just placing warnings on bottles,
perhaps it’s time to look at the root causes of pain and alternative tools to
assist those suffering. After all, according to a headline in Health Day, “Nearly All U.S. Doctors ‘Overprescribe’ Addictive Narcotic Painkillers:
Survey.” (Health Day News. March 25, 2016)