More Soldiers Turn to Acupuncture to Reduce Painkiller
Intake
More and more soldiers are using
alternative treatments to treat pain. Dr. Richard Petri is a staff
physician at William Beaumont Army Medical Center. For years, he's been working on
treatments that bring a holistic approach to pain management.
"It's clear that our health
care isn't at the optimum right now and that we're looking at new ways to
handle old problems," Petri said.
Petri said it's the new initiative
is in hopes of weaning patients off hard pain medications and bringing them
real results.
"Acupuncture gives us another
opportunity to improve the quality of life for the soldiers and collectively
that improves our Army," Petri said.
The first Center of Integrated
Medicine was established at Beaumont back in 2003.
"No place was doing it at this
extent so we were able to develop it and open the door for other places,"
Petri said.
Now, more than a decade later, there
are eight total interdisciplinary pain management centers across the Army.
And the Department of Defense is
taking another step to make acupuncture a more common practice.
"It's a $5.4 million grant to
bring awareness to acupuncture across the DoD -- both Army, Navy and Air Force
as well as the VA," Petri said.
Over two years, 1,000 people will be
trained in battlefield acupuncture techniques.
The goal is to give soldiers
more access to acupuncture treatment.
"A lot of times we get on the
battlefield, we're spread out and the medics are relied heavy upon to do
certain things," said Robert Stokes, a physician's assistant.
Stokes just graduated from the
acupuncture program last week.
"After going through that
class, we practiced on each other, and we did different points on the air and
that pain went from a four to a one. So I'm a believer in it, I actually
experienced it myself," Stokes said.
"I don't believe that I can
cure your problem but I can definitely help you with the symptoms," Petri
said.
The source of the article is here.
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