The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the ultimate resource for anyone who is looking for information about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). With offices and laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, NCCAM is a component of the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It first opened in 1992, under the title of Office of Alternative Medicine. In November of 1996, it was designated a World Health Organization Collaborating Center in Traditional Medicine. Among NCCAM’s responsibilities is to conduct and sponsor (by offering grants) scientific research of CAM, training of CAM practitioners and distribution of information to health care professionals. They also work to integrate CAM methods into mainstream healthcare. The website, www.nccam.nih.gov, offers information about CAM including how to find a practitioner and what questions to ask while you are searching for one. They do not offer a referral service, but they do suggest ways to go about locating a practitioner.
For those who are in the CAM research field, NCCAM’s website offers information about applying for a grant and who is eligible to receive a grant from them. They provide advice on writing a grant with samples to view. When you’re ready to apply, you can do it right from the site. There is further information and advice for their grant holders. If you’re not in the field but would like to be, the website offers information about training and how to get involved in clinical trials. But you don’t need to be a CAM expert to find this website useful. It includes explanations of everything you need to know about CAM, from just what it is to what exactly a clinical trial entails. And there’s a medical dictionary, to help with those words that might be new (or you’ve heard them but never really knew what they meant). In the “health information” section, there is list of various topics with information about how they each relate to CAM, including acupuncture, various herbs, homeopathy, menopause, dietary supplements, arthritis, depression, chiropractic and cancer.
In the “News and Events” section, you can find information about upcoming meetings and lectures, a staff bibliography, and list of alerts and advisories and other information that is valuable to both the casual reader and the health care professional. The site includes the history of NCCAM as it has developed and progressed over the years, and also its legislative history. In the area and looking for an interesting place to visit with your family? You’ll find detailed information about locations of all the labs and offices (and the food court!) on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and rules about security. Looking for a new job in the healing field? There are listings for openings at NCCAM as well as the NIH, jobs for students and information about training and education as well. This site offers some great information to help professionals apply for federal jobs, and even offer information on expected pay and salary schedules.
Students may be interested to read about summer educational employment programs, combining school with work. NIH also offers summer internships. The site has useful links to lead you to the right place for more information. For specific training and career development, the site offers an extensive list of opportunities, for both undergraduate and post-graduate study. And if you are looking for creative ways to finance your ongoing education, the NIH offers loan repayment programs that can help make training opportunities affordable. In addition to loans, there are also training grants available.
When thinking about medical conditions and spiritual healing, you might first think about faith healing. Usually the term “faith healer” connotes negative images of money-hungry frauds, but in reality, most spiritual healing methods are, at least in some way, faith-based. This is not to say that spiritual healing doesn’t have its critics. But even if all that is offered is a placebo effect, the many healing methods that fall under this category have a large following.
“Spiritual healing” has long been used as a general term to describe the methods for aiding in conditions including wound healing, depression, diabetes, tumors, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, heart disease, breast cancer and other cancers, pain management and more. Spiritual healing is, by definition, the use of non-physical means to treat illness or affliction. Sometimes referred to as “faith healing,” spiritual healing is a type of treatment generally considered to be classified as “alternative” or non-traditional. Yet the roots of spiritual healing go back for centuries, and some form of this treatment have been shown to exist is almost every culture known to history.
Some people claim that spiritual healing is a “New Age” phenomenon, but in reality that is not so. Most organized religions invoke some aspect of spiritual healing, through prayer, meditation or special intentions, and praying for the sick is a widely recognized and respected tradition. Prayer has long been used to heal medical conditions. In one study, prayer was documented to cause patients to require fewer antibiotics, it helped to prevent edema (the lungs fill with fluid when the heart can’t operate properly), it made insertion of a breathing tube less likely and it was believed to have made death less likely for the patients involved.
Prayer can be used as a healing device even if the person getting prayed for is miles away, and even if that person isn’t aware he or she is being prayed for. By combining exercise, posture and breathing patterns, Qi Gong (sometimes called Chi Kung) helps to strengthen the body and the immune system, which not only helps to cure illness, but can help to prevent it as well. Polarity Therapy, which blends Eastern and Western ideas by combining bodywork, self-awareness, diet and exercise, has been said to help with symptoms of PMS, migraine headaches and digestive disorders including irritable bowel syndrome.
Acupuncture, a treatment that has seemingly gained respect in the medical community in recent years, uses needles (painlessly) in various “pressure points” along the body to ease the flow of the body’s chi (energy) through the proper channels (meridians) of the body. It has been used to treat arthritis, fibromyalgia, allergies, insomnia and skin conditions, as well as conditions linked to anxiety. It has also been effective in disguising the effect of wrinkles and under-eye bags.
Reiki channels energy through the hands of a practitioner into the relaxed body of the client, reducing stress and recharging the body’s chi (life force). It is used in hospitals to decrease pain, to help patients recover after chemotherapy, to improve appetite and ability to sleep and to reduce stress. Using spiritual healing methods to treat medical conditions at the expense of seeking conventional medical help is not recommended. But when used to complement conventional medicine, many people have found these treatments to be very effective. At the very least, they might offer some hope to someone who desperately needs some. And when thinking about what “spiritual healing” is – the mind, body and spirit working together as one – it’s obvious that spiritual healing and conventional medicine are not mutually exclusive.
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