CTMR conducts workshop for practising Sidha doctors, traditional healers in Coimbatore

With the support of Ayush department, the Chennai based traditional research institute, Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research (CTMR), conducted a two day workshop for the practising Siddha doctors and traditional healers of Tamil Nadu at Coimbatore recently.

More than 60 Siddha practitioners attended the workshop. The theme of the program was 'Traditional Healers of Tamil Nadu -Traditional Healing Practices and Ethno Botanical Collection'.
According to sources from the CTMR, they have chosen a remote area as venue for the workshop as it has a wide area of medicinal plants garden, medicinal plants value addition unit, organic farming of medicinal plants and conservation of endangered medicinal trees including saraca asoka apart from the well maintained hospital in the remote tribal area.
The secretary of CTMR, Dr T Thirunarayanan said that the key objective of the workshop was to bring together expert traditional healers from different regions of the state to a common platform and exchange their knowledge and health practice experiences. Major themes included were 'Varma chiktsa', 'Visha vaidyam', bone setting, treatment to women and children, and ethno-botanical resources and practices of different tribal groups.
The participants were selected from a list of one thousand traditional healers from all the districts of the state. Besides the sixty-plus delegates, 30 traditional healers and institutionally trained physicians of Siddha and Ayurveda took part as non-residential delegates. Members of NGOs like Isha Yoga Trust, Coimbatore Tree Growers Association also took part in the seminar. The participants had a pre-conference informal interaction at the Nilgiri Bio-sphere Park.
The resident Acharya of the centre for higher learning at Nilgiris, Swami Shakshatkarananda Swamiji inaugurated the workshop. He explained the importance of traditional healing system and its contribution to Indian society. Swamiji released a souvenir brought out by CTMR on the occasion.
While addressing the audience, Dr T Thirunarayanan said documentation of traditional knowledge was necessary for the revival of the ancient system. He made a long speech on the efficacy of siddha medicine, its importance, the folklore associated with it and its affordability in the primary health care. Dr D. Narasimhan, Professor in Madras Christian College and a renowned ethno botanist delivered the key note address and explained the richness of the Indian tradition and the need to protect community-based intellectual property.
The Session on Varma had lecture demonstration by Vaidya .Mohanraj of Munchirai College, Coimbatore and Vaidya .Ramaswamy of Ragavendra Varma Hospital for Spinal Disorders, Chennai. Training on locating varma points of the head region and simple healing techniques was given. Vaidyas Murugesan and Kanagaraj took part in the discussion followed.
The Session on Ethno-botanical resources was chaired by Vaidya. S.Usman Ali, the president of CTMR. He presented Ethno-botanical resources used by different ethnic groups of Tamil Nadu and explained the scientific research carried out on plants more frequently used by the healers in poison treatment, bone setting and varma.
Five traditional healers from Tirupur, Theni, Thanjavur, Dharmapuri and Tenkasi shared their experiences on treating common ailments, skin diseases, renal stones, respiratory illness and gynaecological disorders. Vaidya G. Swami of Kabilarmali in Namakkal district spoke about medical ethics and Vaidya Kandasamy spoke about the effectiveness of plant derived salts.
In the second day seminar, Dr S Rajkumar made a presentation on the various treatment procedures adopted in treating poison bites and also other types of poisons. In the Session on 'Visha vaidyam', Vaidya Kuppuswamy and Vaidya Vellakamu exhibited the plants used for the treatment and the rigorous discipline adopted by the healers and the restrictions suggested to the victims.
They said the scorpion sting, bee sting, wasp sting were readily treatable and in snake bite their nasal and ophthalmic application could provide critical time required for the victim to reach hospitals. There was lecture demonstration on treating simple fractures and dislocations.
The plenary session was chaired by Dr T Apparanandam of Siddha Health Foundation. He said the time has come for traditional healers and institutionally trained to enrich their knowledge to provide better healthcare for the people. Later the healers were taken to the medicinal plant demonstration garden of 'AIM for SEVA' in which over 200 plants were grown.

Health ministry begins study on 'Status of Indian Medicine and Folk Healing in India'

Aiming to make a comprehensive report on the current status of the Indian Systems of Medicine (Ayurveda, Unani & Siddha) with special reference to selected aspects of research, education, drugs, healthcare, medicinal plants and folk medicine, the Union health ministry has begun a project titled "Status of Indian Medicine and Folk Healing in India" with special reference to benefits that the systems have given to the public. 

According to sources, the project will be undertaken by Shailaja Chandra, former Secretary, Department of Ayush, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and former Chief Secretary, Government of Delhi. The project will be executed with the collaboration and support of the Research Councils of Ayush namely CCRAS & CCRUM. 

The focus of the Report is expected to reflect the current status as well as gaps that need to be filled with the aim of improving public awareness and access to identified health benefits that each system offers. The project will undertake studies in order to give a comprehensive report on the current status of the Indian Systems of Medicine (Ayurveda, Unani & Siddha) with special reference to selected aspects of research, education, drugs, health care, medicinal plants and folk medicine. 
The Report will combine a study of available documentation, as well as interaction/interviews with eminent experts and important stakeholders. It is expected to provide a preparatory framework for the formulation of the 12th Five-Year Plan proposals. 
The health ministry's initiative in this regard is significant as Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani medicine have been increasingly creating an interest within the country and abroad. Consumers are broadly aware of the benefits of relying on the ASU treatment regimens, medications and applications. But asked about the range of products that are easily accessible and are in comparatively higher demand, few people can give any response other than referring to a handful of products like Chawanprash, Liv 52 or Triphala and similar names.
Except for a handful of industries like Himalaya, Dabur, Baidyanath, Hamdard and Zandu, even the names of the manufacturers are not identifiable to most people. The safety and efficacy of the medicines is little known as many products do not match the level of scrutiny that is increasingly demanded for medicine to be accepted as efficacious, having minimal side effects which too are known and declared. 
The study will focus on all these issue

Univs sign MoU to promote Ancient system of Medicine

Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University (JRRSU) and Rajasthan Ayurveda University (RAU) signed an MoU (Memoranda of Understanding) on Friday for creative assistance and enhancement of the available resources. Vice chancellor of JRRSU Kiran Soni Gupta and RAU V-C Banwari Lal Gaur signed the MoU in Jaipur. 
Gupta said both the universities will cooperate on sharing of teachers, besides holding a number of seminars, conferences and workshops. The universities will give special emphasis on promoting research work. 
"Besides sharing books, we will share information on arrival of new books, journals and papers," Gupta said. 
RAU V-C Gaur said the university will assist JRRSU in setting up a garden of medicinal herbs. Both the universities will further set up an industry for manufacturing medicines from these herbs. This initiative will also help students in undertaking serious research in medicine. Toegther the two universities will formulate a marketing policy together for selling the medicines. 
 Another major contribution, Gaur said, will be to study the impact of the smoke emanating from the yagnas on the human health and body. JRRSU will assist the RAU in setting up a facility for this purpose, Gupta added.
Source:The Times of India
 

Doctors are now focusing in Natural way of healing

Shawn and Stacey Carney of Newtown are taking a natural approach to healing.The married couple recently opened Northeast Natural Medicine at 33 Main St., Newtown, to offer a combination of naturopathic medicine and massage therapy."People are tired of the side-effects of conventional medicine," said Shawn Carey, a naturopathic physician whose wife, Stacey Carney, is a licensed massage therapist. "Our approach is to restore health and balance by using less invasive therapies."There are almost 240 licensed naturopathic physicians licensed in the state of Connecticut, according to the state Department of Public Health's website.Instead of treating symptoms with pharmaceuticals, naturopathic medicine strives to cure ailments through the use of nutrition, vitamins, minerals, botanical medicine and other natural means, Shawn Carney said."Conventional doctors are very important, but this approach is intuitive because it's working with the body and trying to fix the problem from the ground up," he said.Naturopathic doctors may not prescribe pharmaceutical medications or administer IVs in Connecticut, but they may do so in states such as Vermont, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, Carney said.Carney said he recently treated a breast-feeding, 9-month-old baby with chronic ear infections by asking the mother to stop eating foods such as wheat and dairy that can cause inflammation and treated the infection with alcohol-free antimicrobial medicine. He then opened the Eustachian tube with a light touch of his finger and bolstered the child's immune system with vitamin D. Lastly, the mother was put on an elimination diet to determine which food was the specific cause of the ear infection.Carney said a significant segment of naturopathic medicine is proper nutrition, which he studied for two years while earning his doctor of naturopathy from theUniversity of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine."Part of the way you get people better is by addressing what people put into their bodies," said Carney, who specializes in treating Lyme disease after getting it three times and diabetes, which took his father's life at 54. "Growing up, I saw this destructive trend very gradually. It was preventable and that's the tragedy of it."A University of New Haven study shows that the use of certain herbs and minerals have proven effective in treating Lyme disease, Carney said.Naturopathic medicine's growing popularity allows Northeast Natural Medicine, which in May entered into a one-year lease for the former home of the Chamber of Commerce of Newtown, to take several insurance providers, including HealthNet, Cigna, Aetna and Connecticare, Shawn Carey said.The number of patients seeking alternative medicine, including naturopathic medicine, is on the rise as people are becoming more conscious of their own health and more physicians advocate its practice, said Ann Aresco, a naturopathic doctor and president of the Connecticut Naturopathic Physicians Association."People don't realize that naturopathic doctors are state-licensed physicians," she said. "We're looking at the whole patient, not just a symptom."

Source: newstimes.com

10 Minutes - to Save One-third Road Accident Victims from Dying

If the time taken by emergency services to arrive on an accident scene was cut down by 10 minutes, one-third of the victims would be saved from dying, calculate Spanish researchers. 

"The average wait after an accident until the emergency medical services arrive is 25 minutes in Spain", Rocío Sánchez-Mangas, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), tells SINC.

 Her research, which has been published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, is based on information taken from the database records of the Directorate General for Traffic (DGT), which contains exhaustive information on accidents, and another DGT study from May 2004, containing information about the time at which accidents take place, the calls made to the emergency services and their arrival at the accident site. Combining these two databases provided a sample of 1,463 accidents that took place on Spanish roads. 

The authors estimated the probability of death according to the time required for the emergency service response, and the particular characteristics of the victims and the accidents themselves. When other factors were taken into account, "a reduction in the wait from 25 to 15 minutes is associated with a decline of one-third in the death rate, both on motorways and highways, as well as on conventional roads", the authors claim. 

The results also show that the relationship between the death rate and the time required for the emergency health services response is different on different kinds of roads. On conventional roads, an increasing relationship was observed in the first 25 to 30 minutes – the death rate increased in line with the length of time spent waiting.

 Source:Medindia

Newborn Boy Mistaken for a Girl by Brit Docs

Doctors mistakenly told a British couple that they had a newborn girl, who were shocked to find that 'she' was actually a boy five weeks later. 
Mum Claire Robson was called in by an apologetic consultant after more than a month buying pink clothes for her baby - who had been officially named Olivia.
She was shocked to be told her under-developed 1lb 10oz daughter - still in an incubator after being born 11 weeks prematurely - was a son. 
Claire, 21, cuddled her baby - now renamed Dylan - she said: "I just burst into tears. It's taken a bit of getting used to. 
"But I love Dylan just as much. He's the same baby," the Sun quoted Claire as saying. 
Claire, of Brandon, Durham, said: "They were as staggered as we were." 
She told how even when she had a scan before the birth, medics told her she was having a girl. 
Six days later she underwent an emergency Caesarean delivery at Sunderland Royal Hospital amid fears for the baby. 
As the child was born, the new mum asked: "Is it a girl?" Claire said: "The doctor replied, 'Yes'. From that point onwards everyone kept calling the baby a she. Because Dylan was born so early he wasn't fully developed - that's why no one could tell. 
"As he got a few weeks older it became apparent. The consultant called us in, told us to sit down and said, 'Your baby's actually a boy, not a girl'. We were stunned."

 

Guidelines may Help Ease Sleepless Nights

Despite being common issues, insomnia and other sleep disorders are not generally well understood by doctors and other health care professionals. 
Now the British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP) has released up-to-the-minute guidelines in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, published by SAGE, to guide psychiatrists and physicians caring for those with sleep problems.
BAP members, representative clinicians with a strong interest in sleep disorders and experts from the US and Europe got together in May 2009 in London, England to share their knowledge of insomnia, parasomnias and circadian rhythm disorders. As well as a chance to share literature reviews and clinical trial data, the event gave experts the opportunity to reach a consensus on the best current treatments for sleep disorders. The BAP then used this and further rounds of consultation with the event participants to create its guidelines, BAP consensus statement on evidence-based treatment of insomnia, parasomnias and circadian rhythm disorders, which the organisation hopes will present a comprehensive guide to clinicians, who are managing patients in primary or secondary medical care.
Sleep experts agree that insomnia is a condition of unsatisfactory sleep, either in terms of sleep onset, sleep maintenance or early waking. They also agree that insomnia is a disorder that impairs daytime well-being and subjective abilities and functioning, and so can be considered a '24-hour' disorder. Insomnia can also be viewed as a syndrome similar to pain, because it is subjective and its diagnosis is through clinical observations rather than measurements. In some cases physicians will be unable to pinpoint a cause, although this doesn't prevent diagnosis.

 

FDA Asks Johnson & Johnson To Stop Marketing Hip System

 The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked pharma giant Johnson & Johnson's DePuy Orthopaedics Inc to stop selling its Coral Hip System for unapproved uses and to provide information needed for the agency to approve the TruMatch software.The FDA's warning letter, addressed to DePuy President David Floyd, was posted on the agency's website on Tuesday. The letter is dated Aug. 19. It is signed by Timothy A. Ulatowski, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA center that oversees medical devices. 

The FDA states that the Corail Hip System is approved for total hip replacement in patients with six specific types of damage to the hip. But a brochure on DePuy website claims the system can be used for treating two other conditions. 
"Failure to promptly correct these violations may result in regulatory action being initiated by the Food and Drug Administration without further notice," the agency said in the letter. "These actions include, but are not limited to seizure, injunction, and or civil money penalties." 
As for the TruMatch System, it uses software and high-tech CT scanning technology to create a detailed, 3-D view of a patient's knee so a surgeon can properly position a knee implant. 
"A review of our records reveals that you have not obtained marketing approval or clearance before you began offering the TruMatch Personalized Solutions System for sale, which is a violation of the law," the FDA said in the letter.

 

 

Mandatory Flu Vaccine for All Health-care Personnel

Healthcare personnel should consider it a professional and ethical responsibility to submit to influenza vaccination, states a research paper. The paper, published in this month's Infection Control and Healthcare Epidemiology journal and endorsed by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), stresses influenza vaccination of healthcare personnel as a core patient safety practice that should be a condition of both initial and continued employment in healthcare facilities. According to SHEA, their recommendations apply to all healthcare professionals in all healthcare settings, regardless of whether the professional has direct patient contact or whether he or she is directly employed by the facility. The policy also applies to students, volunteers, and contract workers. The only exemptions, say the epidemiologists and infectious disease physicians, should be in cases of medical contraindications. "The transmission of influenza in healthcare settings is a substantial safety concern for both patients and healthcare personnel and deserves our attention and action," said Neil Fishman, MD, president of SHEA. "Healthcare providers are ethically obligated to take measures proven to keep patients from acquiring influenza in healthcare settings. Mandatory vaccination is the cornerstone to a comprehensive program designed to prevent the spread of influenza which also includes identification and isolation of infected patients, adherence to hand hygiene and cough etiquette, the appropriate use of protective equipment, and restriction of ill healthcare personnel and visitors in the facility.