What is integrative care?
Many patients underestimate how dramatically cancer can affect them, physically and emotionally. An integrative approach to cancer care treats the disease with surgery, chemotherapy and other tools, while also supporting patients’ strength, stamina and quality of life with evidence-informed therapies.
The Goal
To help patients reduce treatment delays or interruptions and get the most out of life.
How integrative care can help you
Integrative care has two layers. First, conventional treatments attack the disease itself. At the same time, evidence-informed therapies help combat cancer-related side effects. The two together, conventional cancer treatments and supportive therapies, delivered simultaneously by a collaborative team of clinicians—that’s integrative cancer care.
Integrative Care = Conventional Treatments + Supportive Therapies
Depending on the type of the disease, modern treatments are used alone or in combination, to either control cancer cell growth or to eliminate the disease entirely. The treatment choices depend on the stage of the tumor. Traditional or conventional treatment options may include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and immunotherapy. These therapies have all been tested in clinical trials and proven to be acceptable, safe and effective, although with often unpleasant side effects. But the journey with cancer is a long, stressful and strenuous one. The treatment procedure itself may be detrimental to the emotional well-being of the patient.
This is where Integrated therapies likeAyurveda, Yoga Unani Siddha & Homeopathy (AYUSH) have stepped in to offer holistic treatment. Integrative medicine also referred to as Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) includes a broad range of healing philosophies, approaches and therapies. These therapies are used in an effort to prevent illness, reduce stress, prevent or reduce side effects and symptoms, and control or cure disease. Various surveys show that interest in Complementary and alternative medicine is high among cancer patients
For cancer patients undergoing treatment, the integrated AYUSH treatment mainly focuses on; to help in the reduction of symptoms, including pain, depression, fatigue and anxiety or patients who have end stage disease. In order to provide appropriate guidance on use of CAM-AYUSH therapy from the health care professionals, to incorporate AYUSH therapies into cancer treatment management and to address patient’s interest in AYUSH medicine to improve the quality of life of cancer patients; the trustee and executive board of Lokmanya Medical Foundation made a strategic decision to establish a dedicated AYUSH integrated Comprehensive Cancer Care and Research Centre at Lokmanya Hospital Chinchwad, Pune.
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All these failures and drawbacks of the orthodox treatments have strongly indicated to the scientific communities and researchers that some alternative must be established / developed to control the terrible menaces of the disease.
With this intension, all over the world a campaigns is getting grand not to follow blindly the conventional treatments and give trial to the alternative treatments.
A centre of excellence, Comprehensive Holistic Cancer Centre will integrate comprehensive clinical care, research, education, psychosocial, wellness and volunteer programs creating opportunities for innovative discoveries, compassionate holistic care and better outcomes for patients. This will be achieved through the development of a coordinated, multidisciplinary team of highly talented and motivated people working in clinical care, research, education and psycho-oncology.