Integrative Hospital Care in Boston, Massachusettes

The more I look, the more I find examples of Integrative Cancer Care in the US. By integrative I mean using complementary medicine alongside conventional treatments (such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery). These therapies are part of the whole package of care offered to patients to minimise symptoms and side-effects, to improve the patient experience and to improve the chances of recovery. 

One such example is at the Zakim Centre for Integrative Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. This Centre provides clinical services such as acupuncture, massage therapy, Reiki, therapeutic touch, mind-body techniques, and nutritional consultations and integrates them into oncology practice. The Centre is also dedicated to researching the use of CAM therapies - a current pilot study is looking to evaluate the effects of CAM programs such as exercise on the immune system by studying “lymphocyte function and cytotoxic cells in patients with stable disease off therapy. The study compares Qi Gong with a modified exercise program in patients with stable forms of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and hematologic malignancies”.

Another study is looking to evaluate the outcome of various complementary interventions on patients’ quality-of-life measures. Current studies explore the use of music therapy in patients with breast cancer and the effectiveness of acupuncture on patients with advanced cancer.

If you’re interested to find out more about their work, you can watch this short video here.

Another interesting hospital in the same District is the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (which is an affiliate of Harvard Medical School). As well as offering women’s health services the Hospital is a major centre for transplants, performing heart, lung, kidney, and heart-lung transplant surgery, as well as bone marrow transplantation. The Osher Clinical Centre for Complementary and Integrative Therapies directly offers patients these therapies (which have been found to be particularly helpful for musculoskeletal problems:

• Acupuncture – traditional Chinese and Japanese;
• Chiropractic care;
• Cranial Sacral therapy;
• Therapeutic Massage;
• Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction;
• Occupational Therapy;
• Therapeutic Tai Chi/Yoga.

Brigham and Women’s hospital has an active programme of Reiki (energy healing) to help patients recover from procedures undergone as part of their treatment. And there’s a short video relating to this here.

I’d really like to find examples of integrative care in UK hospitals - if you have any information you’d like to share please get in touch with me.