Regimental Therapy for neurologcal disorder

Unani regimen offers hope to mishap victim By Mohammed Yacoob - BANGALORE Published: 18th November 2013 11:06 AM Last Updated: 18th November 2013 11:06 AM Imran Khan, a resident of Tumkur, had been bedridden for the best part of 12 years after nearly 200 kg of steel fell on his back when he was visiting a construction site. The 28-year-old lost all hope of walking again till he found out about Ilaj bit Tadbeer (regimental therapy), a little-known system of unani medicine involving massage, cupping and leeching using herbs. Imran underwent 14 months of continuous treatment at the National Institute of Unani Medicine (NIUM), which falls under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Now, he has started walking with support. The story of Tousif Ahmed from BTM Layout is similar to Imran’s. Tousif injured his spine in an accident in Andhra Pradesh in January 2012 in which his uncle died. “I was told by a private hospital that I would not walk again and would be bedridden for the rest of my life. But with intervention from NIUM, I am moving in a wheelchair and also walking with crutches,” he said. Tousif has been receiving treatment at the Institute for the past four months. He is currently shooting videos of recovering patients at NIUM in order to make a short film. “I had wanted to set up a call-centre after getting my BCA, but the accident crippled my dream. But as I can move again, I have set a target of five months to walk out of this hospital,” he said. Dr D A Muzzaffar Bhat, resident medical officer of NIUM, said the centre was focusing on neuro-rehabilitation. This included attending to patients who suffered from stroke, myopathy, epilepsy, motor-neuron disease, Parkinson’s disease, hemiplegia and paraplegia. He said NIUM takes up cases referred from other hospitals like NIMHANS. He referred to the successful treatment of Mohammed Farooq, who was admitted to Victoria Hospital after meeting with an accident. He was bedridden for eight months with no sensation in his lower-back. Farooq started treatment at NIUM in January and is now walking with the help of crutches. “No surgeries are done here and our approach is to develop cells and strengthen nerves and muscles,” Dr Bhat said . Options for Cerebral Palsy Aditya Kholi greets you with a smile and offers a chair to those who approach him and only when he tries to walk, do people notice a problem. Aditya is a child who was born with cerebral palsy and could hardly move his legs. His father Mahesh Kohli, an IT professional, had quit his job in Dubai to research treatment options for Aditya, when a friend told him about Ilaj bit Tadbeer. After five months of treatment, Aditya can now sit comfortably and also fold his legs and walk.

AYUSH & WHO

Monday, October 28, 2013 New Delhi: Smt. Santosh Chowdhary, Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare attended WHO High-Level Meeting on the implementation of WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy: 2014-2023 at Macau SAR, China today. Smt. Chowdhary said that relevance of traditional medicine today is talked about almost at every health forum because the world is facing dual spectrum of health problems, intractable lifestyle diseases and a wide gamut of geriatric health conditions. She said that effective solutions for these kinds of diseases are not found in modern medicine. So, Pluralistic health approach seems ideal and affordable. Therefore Governments must adopt multi-dimensional and broad-based policies and strategies to accommodate traditional medicine in the development of health infrastructure and services, she noted. Speaking about the previous WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002-2005 the Minister said that it addressed the issues of policy, safety, efficacy, quality, access and rational use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine. Appreciating the efforts of the member states she said that the number of member states having a formal traditional medicine policy has increased from 25 in 1999 to 69 in 2012; the number of member states that have developed regulations on herbal medicines has increased from 65 in 1999 to 119 in 2012. However, India had enunciated the National Policy on Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy way back in 2002 itself coincidently when global strategy on traditional medicine was framed by WHO. Smt. Chowdhary highlighted that India has a pluralistic healthcare delivery system where the Government provides opportunity to every recognized medical system to develop and be practiced. Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa- Rigpa and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) are recognized systems of traditional medicine in India and they have been integrated into the national health delivery system. There is a peaceful co-existence of Allopathy with AYUSH systems. She said that there is a separate department in our Ministry of Health called Department of AYUSH which provides focused attention for the development and promotion of AYUSH systems at national and international levels. The Minister said that during the last 7years, as many as 15,350 AYUSH facilities have been set up in Primary Health Centers, Community Health Centers and District Hospitals and 12022 AYUSH practitioners and 4905 AYUSH paramedical workers inducted into the Government healthcare services. A policy thrust has been given for functional integration of AYUSH in the initiative of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and national health programmes. She quoted that a survey conducted by National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) in the year 2008 in 18 States of the country found that AYUSH dispensaries provided services to 20 to 120 patients per facility per day and 80-100 % of the households reported use of AYUSH- based local health traditions. Smt. Chowdhary said that India has developed a vast infrastructure of AYUSH facilities comprising of 7,20,937 Registered practitioners, 24,392 Dispensaries & 3,195 Hospitals in public sector, 508 Undergraduate Colleges with annual intake of 25,586 students, 117 centers for Post Graduate education with annual admission of 2,493 scholars and 8,785 licensed drug manufacturing units. The Government has supported resource augmentation in 38,954 hectares in forest areas for medicinal plants & support for cultivation of medicinal plants in 1,85,719 hectares of land has been provided to the farmers till September 2013, she added. Speaking about the National AYUSH Mission the Minister said that it aims to provide complete functional integration in the Essential Health Package and help in combating under-nutrition in children, reduction of anemia in women and prevention and reduction of burden of Communicable and Non-Communicable diseases (including mental illnesses). Smt. Chowdhary emphasized that India has developed Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) for protecting traditional knowledge against misappropriation and wrong patents. Under TKDL, digitization of the knowledge available in public domain in the form of existing literature related to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga, is being done in patent compatible format in five International languages English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish. Till September, 2013 a total of 2, 90,998 formulations have been transcribed, she said. The Minister noted that foreign nationals have been encouraged to come to India for studying Ayurveda. Quality of education, practice, research and drug manufacturing have been regulated and enforced with similar provisions which are stipulated for modern medicine. Smt. Chowdhary hoped that the implementation of the new strategy will be the turning point for the countries in mitigating health challenges with systematic utilization of traditional medicine and it would lead us to new era of Universal Health Coverage. Present at the occasion were Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General, World Health Organization, Mr Fernando Chiu, CEO Macau, Health Ministers of different Countries, officers and experts of WHO and various other dignitaries. - See more at: http://www.orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=45241#sthash.AM9MWdip.dpuf