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on the persistent symptoms and disability resulting from mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). Each year, three- quarters of a million Americans sustain an MTBI... All subjects had a diagnosis of MTBI, consistent with the ACRM definition, confirmed by history taken by the director of the SRH outpatient head injury clinic (EW); the mean duration since injury for the sample studied was 2.93 years (SD 3.1, range 4 months to 16 years).
The homeopathic medicine appropriate to each case was chosen, using a classic homeopathic process. Characteristic symptoms for each patient were determined; these symptoms were then cross-referenced with homeopathic medicines known to elicit or cure these symptoms, a process called repertorization, performed using a computerized repertory program (MacRepertory 3.4) and the single medicine most similar to the patient’s case was determined by study of relevant materia medica by the homeopathic physician (EC) and the staff psychiatrist (RW).
Eighteen homeopathic medications were selected for use in this study, based on the similarity of drugs’ proving symptoms with the symptoms of people with MTBI, the published experience of physicians using these remedies in cases of head injury, 20–22 and the author’s (EC) observation of efficacy in cases of head injury (the 18 remedies are listed in a table).
Discussion: This study makes a significant contribution to both the assessment and treatment of persistent MTBI. This was the first clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of homeopathy as therapy for persistent MTBI. The treatment group subjects reported a highly significant reduction on scales measuring difficulty functioning in situations commonly encountered in daily life and a significant decrease in the reported frequency of ten most commonly reported symptoms of MTBI.
Our results suggest that homeopathy—alone or used concurrently with conventional pharmacological and rehabilitation therapies—may be effective in treating patients with persistent MTBI, a clinical entity for which current treatment has limited effectiveness.
The limitations imposed by the design of this pilot study, including the number and potency of homeopathic medicines and duration of treatment, may have led to an underestimate of the actual benefits of homeopathic treatment. Further exploration of homeopathy’s role in the treatment of MTBI is needed, including basic science studies to define the mechanism for the action of homeopathy.
A study like this, that is current and done by a respected group of doctors and a PhD, and which adheres to the highest level of what is considered the appropriate setup — randomized, double-blind & placebo controlled — would seem to be valid evidence of effectiveness.
Nonetheless, despite such carefully done and double-blind studies, we see statements like this:
Vets Protest Over Homeopathy Plan3
A group of vets has said they are concerned by European Commission proposals to legitimize the use of homeopathic remedies for animals. In an open letter to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the group says there is no clinical evidence that homeopathy works.
Professor Derek Knottenbelt, from the University of Liverpool, is spokesman for the group of forty concerned vets, professors and veterinary nurses. He told BBC Radio Four’s Farming Today programme that homeopathic treatments had not gone through the rigorous clinical trials of conventional medicines. “Homeopathic medicine, in the broadest sense of the word, is unproven, unscientific,
and unvalidated,” he said. “In any sense of the word it is an unjustified approach to an ill animal.”
We keep coming to the same point. No matter what evidence there is, if from clinical experience or from properly done research studies, there is non-acceptance of homeopathic medicine. Why is this? As said above, it is not logical, does not make sense in that scientific studies would be usually considered the determinant. As a culture, we have embraced the scientific method and as part of this method is the idea that the outcome of careful experience is worthy of respect. The outcome may not fit our prior way of thinking but, again, that is why scientific studies are so valuable — they help us to view things in new ways.
Let us look at how medicine has refused to take this position of embracing the scientific method.
Medicine and Science
Over and over we see the statement that homeopathy is unscientific. The most often given objection that brings this conclusion to be offered by critics is that there is no physical medicine in what is given. The extensive dilution eliminates any physical substance; therefore, it can have no action. The concept of an influence or energy that is an aspect of physical phenomena, and that this influence is released or enhanced by this process, is ignored or ridiculed. We all have the experience of non-visible energies, especially in our modern world of cell phones, TV signals, the internet. We know that Einstein told us that energy and matter are interchangeable.
Yet when it comes to living forms this is considered impossible.
The Obstacle
This attitude of conventional medicine, the allopathic school, is the outcome of a view of physical reality that is
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