Complementary therapies help cancer patients: study
Posted Thu Jun 23, 2005 3:27pm AEST
A new Perth study has found alternative therapies like acupuncture and massage significantly improve the well-being of cancer patients.
More than 500 patients in the study began using complementary treatments in addition to traditional medicine like chemotherapy and morphine over a 17-month period.
The researchers at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital found the therapies relieved physical symptoms such as nausea and pain, while improving the patient's overall quality of life.
The director of the Cancer Support Centre, David Joske, says the treatments worked extremely well but more research needs to be done "to start to ask how can we get the best out of these two worlds which in the past really have been mutually exclusive in our society".
He says he hopes the study gives greater credibility to the benefits of complementary medicine.
