Complementary and alternative therapies are increasingly popular with patients who are brain-injured, although they are not sharing this with their physicians.

Around 5.3 million Americans are living with disabilities caused by brain injury. It's a chronic condition, with no obviously successful conventional treatment. Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation wanted to know how popular complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches are in this group.

They surveyed 130 patients and learned that over half had used at least CAM therapy and a third used two or more. Most commonly, patients were turning to massage therapy and chiropractic for pain, meditation to help their mood, and herbal medicine for cognitive problems, like memory loss.

While most felt their CAM treatments were helpful, the researchers caution that there is little hard evidence for the effectiveness of these therapies in brain-injured patients. What is more, many patients did not tell their doctors they were having other therapies - which could be problematic if vitamins and other supplements interact with conventional drugs. It would be helpful if more trials were done of CAM for brain-injured patients so they can extract the most benefit by choosing the ones that really work.

Source

American Academy of Neurology Meeting 1st April 2003