The Center of Integrative Medicine Mind-Body of the Department of Clinical Medicine of the HCFMUSP held, on October 18th, the I International Symposium on Integrative Medicine Mind-Body. Besides the foreigner and Brazilian lecturers, the meeting gathered experts and students of the medical area. The lectures were held at the Amphitheater 1 of the Institute of Radiology (InRad) of HCFMUSP.
John Weeks, Editor in-chief of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM), has spoken about the history of Integrative Medicine since its early beginnings, on the 70’s. The concept was born from the context of the counterculture and the introduction of the I Ching on the Occident, among the publications of revolutionary works of the time, such as Silent Spring, of Rachel Carson, and the song “We Shall Overcome, Some Day”, recorded by several artists.
“The Integrative Medicine is a treatment beyond the disease. We treat the patient as a whole, from their lifestyle to the way they engage with the environment. The interaction with the patient is very important. Today we see many doctors that don’t even look at their patients’ eyes. I believe that if we can act preventively, before the disease brings the person to the hospital, then we would have more we could do to improve medicine”, says Prof. Dr. Chin An Lin, head of the General Educational Ambulatory of HCFMUSP. Co-coordinator of the Center of Integrative Medicine Mind-Body, professor Lin has publications about acupuncture and develops research in this field.
Several publications and scientific researches have been giving support to the ever growing credibility of integrative medicine practices, as shown by Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Burdmann, of the Discipline of Nephrology of FMUSP and co-coordinator of the Center of Integrative Medicine Mind-Body. The area has been growing also in the teaching of medicine, as seen in a diversity of academic programs.
According to Burdmann, his team applied to a group of FMUSP students some techniques of integrative medicine developed by Dr. Susan Andrews, a psychologist and anthropologist graduated from Harvard University (USA) and one of the lecturers at the meeting. According to Burdmann, the results have shown a rise in anti-inflammatory cytosine of the students, after the intervention.
“During the next year we will perform two researches applying techniques of mind-body medicine developed by Dr. Andrews. One will be conducted in diabetic and/or hypertensive patients with anxiety who are cared for in the General Educational Ambulatory of the Clinical Medicine of HCFMUSP. The goal is to analyze the effects of the technique over anxiety disorders and the control of diabetes and hypertension”, says Burdmann.
Another research will be conducted with the staff of HCFMUSP who are being treated for non-communicative chronic diseases on SAME of FMUSP. “In this case, the idea is to evaluate the effect of the technique over the resilience of a stress charge and over the treatment of Non-Transmissible Chronic Diseases”, states Burdmann.
At the Unified Health System (SUS), the integrative medicine is fairly new, having been included by the Decree Nº 849 of 2017, when the Ministry of Health included among the offered services the practices of Art Therapy, Ayurveda, Biodance, Circular Dance, Meditation, Music Therapy, Nature Therapy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Reflex Therapy, Reike, Shantala, Integrative Communal Therapy and Yoga.
