Am J Chin Med. 2015 Nov 30:1550085. [Epub ahead of print]
Abstract
Complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM) has gained acceptance throughout the industrialized
world. The present study was performed to provide information about the
use of CAM at Mayo Clinic, an academic medical center in Northern
Midwest of the US. We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical
records of 2680 patients visiting the CAM program at Mayo Clinic,
Rochester, between 1 July 2006 and 31 March 2011. Services provided
included acupuncture, massage, integrative medical consultations and
executive stress management training. Data including age, gender, race,
diagnosis and the number of treatment/consultation sessions were
collected to describe the use of CAM in our institute over the last
several years. It was found that the mean (standard deviation) age of
patient was 52.6 (15.5) years. Of those, 73.1% were female and 26.9%
were male. Most patients were white. The number of patients referred to
CAM increased significantly from 2007 to 2010. The three most common
diagnostic categories were back pain (12.9%), psychological disorders
(11.8%), and joint pain
(9.6%). Back pain was the most common diagnosis for patients receiving
acupuncture, and fibromyalgia was the most common for patients receiving
massage therapy. Psychological disorders (i.e., stress) were the major
diagnosis referred to both integrative medical consults and executive
stress management training. These results suggest that the diseases
related to pain and psychological disorders are the main fields of CAM
use. It also shows the increasing trend of the use of CAM at an academic
medical center in the US.
