Acupressure

Answer questions and earn CME/CNE Patients with breast cancer commonly use complementary and integrative therapies as supportive care during cancer treatment and to manage treatment-related side effects. However, evidence supporting the use of such therapies in the oncology setting is limited.

A supportive medical team should be well informed on the various pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic modalities of coping with or mitigating labor pain to appropriately support and respectfully care for parturients. Using the methodical rigor of previously published Cochrane systematic reviews, this summary evaluates and discusses the efficacy of nonpharmacologic labor analgesic interventions.

QUESTION: In women with primary dysmenorrhoea, what is the effect of physiotherapeutic interventions compared to control (either no treatment or placebo/sham) on pain and quality of life? DESIGN: Systematic review of randomised trials with meta-analysis. PARTICIPANTS: Women with primary dysmenorrhea. INTERVENTION: Any form of physiotherapy treatment. OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was menstrual pain intensity and the secondary outcome was quality of life. RESULTS: The search yielded 222 citations. Of these, 11 were eligible randomised trials and were included in the review.

Answer questions and earn CME/CNE Patients with breast cancer commonly use complementary and integrative therapies as supportive care during cancer treatment and to manage treatment-related side effects. However, evidence supporting the use of such therapies in the oncology setting is limited.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is highly prevalent and occurs in a variety of populations. Because of the complexity of its sequelae, treatment strategies pose a challenge. Given this complexity, TBI provides a unique target of opportunity for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments. The present review describes and discusses current opportunitites and challenges associated with CAM research and clinical applications in civilian, veteran and military service populations.

OBJECTIVE: To review available evidence about the effectiveness of alternative therapies for nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE and 13 additional US and international data bases were searched in 1996-1997 for papers that described use of alternative medicine in the treatment of pregnancy and pregnancy complications, specifically those addressing nausea, vomiting, and hyperemesis. Bibliographies of retrieved papers were reviewed to identify additional sources. METHODS OF STUDY SELECTION: All relevant English language clinical research papers were reviewed.

A supportive medical team should be well informed on the various pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic modalities of coping with or mitigating labor pain to appropriately support and respectfully care for parturients. Using the methodical rigor of previously published Cochrane systematic reviews, this summary evaluates and discusses the efficacy of nonpharmacologic labor analgesic interventions.

Acupuncture and acupressure are often advocated and used as a means of controlling appetite and reducing body weight, supported by case-series and uncontrolled studies that show encouraging results. This paper reviews placebo/sham-controlled clinical trials published on this topic. Two independent literature searches identified four such studies. None of these is without significant methodological flaws and their results are contradictory. The two relatively rigorous trials show no effect on body weight.

We assessed the efficacy of nonpharmacologic techniques to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) by systematic review. These studies included acupuncture, electroacupuncture, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, acupoint stimulation, and acupressure. Of the 24 randomized trials retrieved by a search of articles indexed on the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases (1980-1997), 19 were eligible for meta-analysis. The primary outcomes were the incidence of nausea, vomiting, or both 0-6 h (early efficacy) or 0-48 h (late efficacy) after surgery.

BACKGROUND: Acupuncture and related techniques are promoted as a treatment for smoking cessation in the belief that they may reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this review are to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture and the related interventions of acupressure, laser therapy and electrostimulation, in smoking cessation in comparison with no intervention, sham treatment, or other interventions.