In the book: Own Your Health, Dr. Barrie R. Cassileth Ph. D., Chief of the Integrative Medicine Services at Memorial Sloan – Kettering Cancer Center in New York City gives her take on the treatment of cancer. She has worked with cancer patients who combined mainstream medicine and alternative approaches. When she talks about cancer, people should listen and she also stresses integrative medicine is not the same as alternative medicine.
No one should ever have any misgivings or misconception of the facts and at Sloan – Kettering, not only, are the tumors treated, but also, the staff takes care of the mind, body and spirit of the patient and their families. We calm them down, up lift spirits, teach them how to keep their bodies strong and help alleviate pain and reduce side effects of the disease and from the therapies.
The philoposhy of treatment is that strengthening the body, mind and spirit helps patients battle the disease and use mainstream treatments more effectively. Patients have told them they could not have gone through their cancer treatments without M.S.K.C.C. services. When asked about the patients who choose to eschew conventional cancer treatment ~ whether surgery, radiation or chemotherapy ~ in favor of alternative treatments for cancer the response was… they usually don’t do as well.
In two Memorial Sloan – Kettering out patient buildings, cancer patients and their family members can improve the quality of their lives. While they and their love ones are under going cancer treatment. The array of choices is abundant: massage, reflexology, Shiatsu and several other kinds of body work; spiritual healing, art and music therapy, acupuncture, several kinds of meditation, with hypnotherapy, guided imagery and visualization, yoga, tai chi, Alexander Technique, nutritional counseling, information also on herbs & supplements and many more healing regimens.
Impatients at Sloan Kettering can also take advantage of complimentary services. On any given day, a visitor to an impatient ward might encounter a meditation teacher, music therapists playing a live concert, or a massage therapists. Many of these practitioners might be working with the patients alone or alongside chemotherapy nurses, the oncologists or pain experts. Dr. Cassileth says, “we have found, for example, complimentary therapies can often reduce the amount of pain medication that patients require.
The services at M.S.K.C.C. also teaches cancer patients who want to learn how to help themselves, there are ways to eat, live and function that may help make the cancer treatment more effective.” Each patient receives a booklet and other material with concrete suggestions, how to use nutrition, herbs, over the counter remedies and those complementary therapies to “ease the way” during cancer treatment.
These booklets and classes have helped patients deal with anxiety and stress, backaches or muscle aches, cold and flu, digestion problems, also depression, headaches, nausea, chronic pain and sleep problems. One booklet contains warnings about herbal products and supplements, that have serious toxic effects, especially when they are combined with other medications, chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
“It’s important for patients to know, for example, high doses of certain vitamins can actually feed a tumor,” says Cassileth. The overall message is that with correct information, combined with mainstream complimentary therapy patients can take responsibility for their own lives. My suggestion: is that prevention always beats treatment and until you get that dreadful diagnosis, always keep reading, learning and recognizing cancer awareness because in the future maybe our medical profession won’t be there.