Presentation Abstracts

Evidence for CAM interventions: In the eye of the beholder?

Assessing evidence of CAM interventions is complex, as CAM interventions do not lend themselves well to randomized controlled trials. While there is increasing recognition that scientific evidence should be complemented by professional judgment and patient values and preferences (Sackett, 2002), evidence remains an often misunderstood concept that is open to multiple interpretations and is interpreted differently by different stakeholders.

Translating Evidence to the Masses: The Role of the Media in Communicating about CAM

The mass media serve an important role in communicating evidence about complementary and alternative medicine to patients, practitioners, researchers and policy makers. Journalists draw from a wide range of evidence sources, ranging from scientific research to personal anecdotes, and shape the information into a story that readers can readily understand and remember. This presentation will focus on the media as a knowledge translation mechanism by which a wide range of evidence types are translated to mass audiences and the impact of the media in shaping popular conceptions of evidence.

Integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Biomedicine In Clinical Practice and Teaching.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is composed of nutrition, herbal medicine, acupuncture, manipulative therapy, Qi Gong, and many others. Whereas Western Biomedicine (WB) encompasses basic medical and clinical sciences. TCM is holistic and emphasises the artistic ways of healing, prevention, and self-care. Biomedicine emphasizes the scientific and high tech medical approaches. Both medical traditions have their own intrinsic values and their own philosophical, diagnostic, and therapeutic merit.
In case of life threatening or emergency situations western biomedicine plays a very important role in stabilizing critical conditions. Essential emergency surgery and trauma care as provided by Western Biomedicine has been highly effective with acute medical conditions. In chronic cases TCM can provide effective treatments with little side effects. It is a more natural and holistic approach that also enhances preventative care and personal responsibility for self-care. Also TCM emphasises the importance of living in harmony with Mother Nature and enriching the quality of life.
It is very important to have both skills and knowledge of TCM and Western Biomedicine from philosophical, diagnostic, and treatment perspectives so that we can help our dear patients and enrich their quality of life. In the medical profession it is always optimal to use the best of all medical systems not only in clinical practice but also in research and teaching. TCM and biomedicine integration should complement each other like the Ying and Yang symbol. The main purpose is to give the best benefits to our dear patients who are in need of our professional help.

Creating the Evidence Base: Challenges in Conducting Research on the Efficacy of Mind-Body Interventions

Researchers in CAM are well aware that the most highly regarded form of evidence for an intervention continues to be the efficacy trial using an RCT design following the CONSORT guidelines. Hence, we typically try to apply these types of designs so that our research will be taken seriously and to increase chances of publication. However, in practice there can be stumbling blocks that make such research designs either unethical, impractical or impossible to carry out in real-life clinical settings. Examples from our program of mind-body intervention research will be provided to demonstrate alternative approaches to research design and modifications to the traditional RCT that attempt to balance internal validity with practicality.

CAM Systematic Reviews: The Cochrane Approach to Finding and Synthesizing Evidence

The Cochrane Collaboration's vision is that healthcare decision-making around the world will be informed by high-quality, timely research evidence, and that we will play a pivotal role in the production and dissemination of this evidence across all areas of health care, including complementary medicine. For systematic reviews of therapeutic interventions, Cochrane sets the evidence bar at controlled clinical trials, but not necessarily RCTs. The ongoing Cochrane effort to identify all trials in complementary medicine results in rich resources for researchers, CAM practitioners and medical librarians. Margaret will describe these resources, a well as profiling the trials identified in CM topics. Finally, recognizing that the intent of the controlled trial design is to protect the evidence from various types of epidemiological bias, N-of-1 trials (a design that may be particularly suited to studying CAM interventions in applied clinical settings) will be discussed.

Panel discussion

Representatives from publishers of Web-based CAM information will participate in a panel discussion about the information needs of CAM practitioners, and will respond to the issues raised by the speakers throughout the day