TY  - JOUR
AU  - Arman, Maria
AU  - Mark, Katarina
PY  - 2018
DA  - 2018/11/27
TI  - Complementary and alternative treatment of MS – A study of three cases
JO  - OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine
SP  - 031
VL  - 03
IS  - 04
AB  - Background: People suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) commonly use Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) due to the partial efficacy of conventional treatment, the chronic aspect of MS, the impact of pain and the side effects of medication. An exploratory descriptive case study consisting of three cases was performed to document and analyse patient experience of Applied Kinesiological (AK) treatment of patients suffering from MS.

Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with three patients who had been diagnosed with MS at a neurology department and who had simultaneously sought CAM-treatment from a kinesiologist. The interviews were open-ended and semi-structured. A second interview was conducted for validation. The interviews produced texts that were analysed through phenomenological-hermeneutic text analysis. The three case studies amounted in a cross-case synthesis.

Results: Themes that emerged from the interviews where: having hope, trusting the kinesiologist, diet changes essential, losing trust in the health care system, feeling confused and getting better. The experience of AK treatment gave the informants a sense of hope, trust and increased health. During comprehensive understanding it was found that the patients experienced being able to make changes for life, getting past their diagnosis of MS and being able to experience increased health through AK treatment.
Conclusion: The interviews comprise phenomenological-hermeneutic narratives of health, and of the becoming of one-self in the body. The AK treatments assisted the patients into a home-likeness of being-in-the-world, an experience of becoming whole, repaired rather than damaged. Parallel to this the patients experienced their MRIs stabilising during the AK treatment period. They experienced transcending their MS diagnose.
SN  - 2573-4393
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.icm.1804031
DO  - 10.21926/obm.icm.1804031
ID  - Arman2018
ER  -