Acupuncture Poll's question for the month of April 2001 was:
"What percentage of your patients are above the age of 65?"
Results are as follows:
These results are based upon responses from 100 people. Here is a sample of the comments made by those who took the survey and how they voted:
50% or greater: More than 50% of my patients are >70 years old. Most of them are on 10-20 Rx drugs per day! I am not having great results with pain relief due to the fact that most are overweight, on many drugs (including coumadin), and have pacemakers. Also, most have never tried acupuncture before, and the mindset is not conducive to healing in a holistic manner. They are also set in the old ways of cooking food ...grilling, frying, etc., and will not change. On the positive side, a few of my older patients with chronic pain have had acupuncture for 15-20 yrs and are not on Rx. These patients always get relief after treatment. Long story short: the younger the patient, the better the results of the treatment. Hope this was not too long a response, I could say a lot more.
50% or greater: I see a lot of retired folks and see a special market here. There is much use of drugs on a regular basis, and complications. I see a growing area that is not really dealt with much in acupuncture schools and conferences: Oriental medicine and the aging population.
The most important relationship I seek to nurture in the treatment room is the one a patient has with their own body. We live in a culture that teaches us to override pain, defer to outside authority, and push through discomfort. Patients often arrive hoping I can “fix” them, but the truth is, we can’t do the work for them. We can offer guidance, insight and support, but healing requires their full participation.
In the U.S alone, approximately one in nine adults (11.1%) report experiencing subjective cognitive decline. A comparable percentage will go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. As researchers and clinicians seek integrative solutions outside of conventional pharmacological approaches, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) emerges as a promising, multimodal strategy in the prevention and treatment of cognitive decline.
When we are in the grips of an anxious pattern, it dominates our brain and nervous system, and we lose our normal body-mind regulation. In this and subsequent articles, I present effective mindfulness-based method* via case study, that we can add to our acupuncture treatments to help clients consciously stop the dysregulating cascade of events and bring “distressed parts” into coherent body-mind-spirit integration.
