Long-Term Effects of Maternal Medication on Global Quality of Life Measured with SEQOL. Results from the Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959�61

The Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959�61 is a prospective longitudinal perinatal study that included all deliveries (over 20 weeks gestation, birthweight over 250 g) that took place at the University Hospital (Rigshospitalet) in Copenhagen, Denmark during the period of September 21, 1959 to December 21, 1961 and used in this follow-up study to investigate the connection between maternal medication during pregnancy and the quality of life of the child 31 to 33 years later. The latest follow-up study from the cohort was performed in 1993 and 7,222 of the surviving children were identified (now aged between 31 and 33 years) and contacted with a nonanonymous questionnaire on several aspects of quality of life issues.There were 4,626 usable responses (f = 2,489, m = 2,131) corresponding to a response rate of 64.1%. Of the 12 groups of medication taking during pregnancy we found, before controlling (using multiple linear regression), that analgesics, chemotherapy, and psychopharmacologica showed links with the quality of life in the child 31 to 33 years later. Barbiturate use (95% was phenemal) showed significant connection to quality of life. After controlling for social and pregnancy factors there was no correlation between quality of life and medication taken by the mother during pregnancy. From this study it is concluded the fetal exposure to the drugs examined showed no measurable long-term effects on quality of life

Quality of Life as Medicine: A Pilot Studyof Patients with Chronic Illness and Pain

An intensive 5-day quality-of-life (QoL) session was constructed based on a psychosomatic model. The session was comprised of teaching on philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy. The three elements were put together in such a way that they mutually supported each other. The synergy attained was considerable. The pilot study demonstrated that in the course of only 1 week, patients had time to revise essential life-denying views and to integrate important, unfinished life events involving negative feelings. Consequently, the patients became more present in the body’s blocked-off areas and subjectively healthier. Nineteen persons with chronic illness and pain (fibromyalgia, chronic tiredness, whiplash, mild depression, and problems involving pain in arms and legs including osteoarthritis), and unemployed for 5–7 years attended the course. In the week before and after the 5-day course, the participants completed the validated SEQOL (Self-Evaluation of Quality of Life Questionnaire) including questions on self-evaluated health and the unvalidated “Self-Evaluation of Working-Life Quality Questionnaire” (SEQWL). This pilot study was without a control group or clinical control. As far as diagnoses were concerned, the group was inhomogeneous. Common for the group was a low QoL, poor quality of working life QWL, and numerous health problems. The study showed an 11.2% improvement in QoL (p < 0.05), a 6.3% improvement in QWL (p < 0.05), and a 12.0% improvement in self-perceived physical health (p = 0.08). There was a 17.3% improvement in self-perceived psychological health (p < 0.05) and satisfaction with health in general improved by 21.4% (p < 0.05). Symptoms like pain were almost halved and several of the participants were free of pain for the first time in years. In conclusion it seemed that the combination of training in philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy can give patients a large, fast, and efficient improvement in QoL, QWL, and health. It is not known if these changes will be permanent and if all kinds of patients with different health problems will gain from this cure. Further research should be conducted

Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day �Quality of Life and Health� Cure for Patients with Alcoholism

Alcoholism can be understood as a self-treatment for existential pain. A 5-day treatment was designed to relieve this psychological pain and existential anxiety, and thereby diminish the need for self-treatment with alcohol. The basic principle behind the treatment was holistic, restoring the quality of life (QOL) and relationship with self, which according to the life mission theory happens when life-denying views are corrected and inner emotional conflicts are solved. The method in this treatment was a course with teachings in philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy. The synergy attained was considerable and the outcome demonstrates that in the course of 1 week, people have time to revise essential life-denying views and to integrate important, unfinished life events involving negative feelings. This was demonstrated by an improved QOL and a decrease in their dependency and need for alcohol abuse. In the week before, after the 5-day course, and again after 1 and 3 months, the 16 participants completed the SEQOL questionnaire on QOL and health. This was a pilot study based on a pre-experimental design, without a control group and without clinical control. Common for the group were a low QOL, numerous health problems, and alcohol dependency in spite of treatment with Antabus� (disulfiram). The study showed an increase in QOL from 57.6% before the course to 69.4% 3 months after the course, or an improvement in QOL of 11.8%. There was a 24.0% improvement in self-perceived mental health, and satisfaction with health in general was improved by 11.1%. The total sum of health symptoms in the group was reduced from 59% of maximum to 33%. It is concluded that for this small and motivated group with alcohol problems, it was possible to improve QOL and health in only 5 days with a holistic treatment that combined philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy, but the results are not final. Further research is needed

The Life Mission Theory III. Theory of Talent

When we acknowledge our purpose as the essence of our self, when we take all our power into use in an effortless way, and when we fully accept our own nature — including sex and sexuality, our purpose of life takes the form of a unique talent. Using this talent gives the experience of happiness. A person in his natural state of being uses his core talent in a conscious, joyful, and effortless way, contributing to the world the best he or she has to offer. Full expression of self happens when a person, in full acceptance of body and life, with whole-hearted intension, uses all his personal powers to realize his core talent and all associated talents, to contribute to his beloved and to the world. Thus, self-actualisation is a result of a person fully expressing and realizing his core talent.The theory of talent states that a core talent can be expressed optimally when a human being takes possession of a three-dimensional space with the axis of purpose, power and gender, as we have a threefold need: 1-Acknowledging our core talent (our purpose of life) and intending it 2-Understanding our potential powers and manifesting them 3-Accepting our human form including our sex and expressing itThe first dimension is spiritual, the next dimension is mental, emotional and physical, and the third dimension is bodily and sexual. We manifest our talents in a giving movement from the bottom of our soul trough our biological nature onto the subject and object of the outer world. These three dimensions can be drawn as three axes, one saggital axis called purpose or love or me-you, one vertical axis called power or consciousness (light) or heaven-earth, and one horizontal axis called gender or joy or male-female. The three core dimensions of human existence are considered of equal importance for expression of our life purpose, life mission, or core talent. Each of the dimensions is connected to special needs. When these needs are not fulfilled, we suffer and if this suffering becomes unbearable we deny the dimension or a part of is. This is why the dimensions of purpose, power and gender become suppressed from our consciousness

Measurement of Quality of Life IV. Use of the SEQOL, QOL5, QOL1, and Other Global and Generic Questionnaires

Quality-of-life (QOL) rating scales can be used to measure and describe the quality of life of a specific population or patient group. Many decisions can be taken and policies implemented when we know more about a group or population. The global quality-of-life concept may help in expressing the objective of the initiatives taken to benefit specific groups. The objective may be that we hope the efforts will increase their quality of life by a certain percentage. This explicit expectation will force the decision makers to stand by their noble intentions. They are obliged to evaluate their efforts and will have to learn something from it.A questionnaire thus constitutes a useful scientific instrument, as databases based on comprehensive and thorough questionnaire surveys that seek to encompass all aspects of life can provide valuable and precise information. The value of such a database depends on the correct use of the questionnaires and this paper examines some examples of how quality-of-life rating scales can be used.We identified at least ten ways to use the quality-of-life questionnaire: describing the quality of life of a population or patient group; formulating an objective for support, treatment, or care; screening or identifying individuals who need treatment; evaluating treatment and care; facilitating communication between physician and patients; involving the patient in the decision-making process; allocating resources; investigating the causal relation between the quality of life and ill health in prospective studies; creating an awareness of the quality of life and health promotion; and helping the practitioner to accumulate knowledge.Enhancing the quality of life is therefore a determining factor in the process of increasing awareness and responsible conduct in relation to the environment, natural resources, the working environment, and the structure of society. Putting the quality of life on the agenda inherently has a constructive and positive effect on the life and functioning of the individual and society

Holistic Medicine: Scientific Challenges

The field of holistic medicine is in need of a scientific approach. We need holistic medicine — and we even need it to be spiritual to include the depths of human existence — but we need it to be a little less “cosmic” in order to encompass the whole human being. Many important research questions and challenges, empirical as well as theoretical, demand the attention from medical researchers. Like a number of other practitioners and researchers, our group at the Quality of Life Research Center in Denmark together with groups in Norway and Israel are trying to tackle the research challenge by using conceptual frameworks of quality of life. We have suggested that quality of life represents a third influence on health beyond the genetic and traumatic factors so far emphasized by mainstream medicine. In our clinical and research efforts, we attempt to specify what a clinician may do to help patients help themselves, by mobilizing the vast resources hidden in their subjective worlds and existence, in their hopes and dreams, and their will to live. The field of holistic medicine must be upgraded to fully integrate human consciousness, scientifically as well as philosophically. We therefore present a number of important research questions for a consciousness-based holistic medicine. New directions in healthcare are called for and we need a new vision of the future of the healthcare sector in the industrialized countries. Every person seems to have immense potentials for self-healing that we scarcely know how to mobilize. A new holistic medicine must find ways to tackle this key challenge. A healthcare system that could do that successfully would bring quality of life, health, and new ability of functioning to many people

Clinical Holistic Medicine: Use and Limitations of the Biomedical Paradigm

The biomedical paradigm is so convincing from a biochemical point of view, and highly efficient in many cases of acute medical problems and emergencies, but unfortunately most patients do not get much better only treated with drugs; they need to do something about their lives themselves. It is highly important for the modern physician to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the modern biomedical paradigm, to understand when and when not to administer drugs to their patients. Often a symptom can be eliminated for a while with drugs, but this is not always good as the patient might need to learn to study the imbalances in life that cause the disturbances and symptoms. For the elderly patient, sometimes life can be extended in spite of the subjective fact that life has come to its end. Sometimes treatment with a drug can teach the patient that quality of life is the responsibility of the physician and not the patient. This learned attitude can give the patient problems later or make them less active in helping themselves (responsibility transfer in the wrong direction).This paper gives a number of examples where medical drugs really are the treatment of choice in general practice and some more doubtful examples of using of the biomedical paradigm

Assessing the Health Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Insecticide-Treated Mosquito Nets in the Control of Malaria in Endemic Regions

Malaria is a protozoan disease caused in humans by the genus Plasmodium of which four species are known: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae. It is transmitted through the bite of infected female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. Malaria is endemic in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It is characterized by extreme exhaustion associated with paroxysms of high fever, sweating, shaking chills, and anemia. Approximately 40% of the world's population, mostly those living in the poorest nations, are at risk. Much of the deaths due to malaria occur in Africa, mostly among children. The search for prevention and control interventions that are effective and sustainable remains an abiding challenge for national governments and international health agencies. To this end, the World Health Organization and several nongovernmental organizations are investing in the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITMNs) as a viable option. Trials of ITMNs in the 1980s and 1990s showed that they reduce deaths in young children by an average of 20% and multilateral agencies, spearheaded by Roll Back Malaria (RBM), seek to have 60% of the populations at risk sleeping under ITMNs by 2005. All pesticides are toxic by nature and present risks of adverse effects that depend on toxicity of the chemical and the degree of exposure. While there is agreement that ITMNs can be effective in reducing malaria morbidity and mortality under field trials, a number of factors relating to their sustainability and contribution to health improvement in less-developed countries have yet to be determined. In particular, the adverse effects associated with their long-term use and misuse has yet to be fully evaluated. Although this paper examines potential neurotoxic and neurobehavioral effects of long-term use of ITMNs and discusses priority public health actions for protecting the health of users, it forms the basis for further research

Industrial and Non-Industrial Medicine - Нe Power of Money vs. the Power of Personal Contact and Empathy

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