This review examines the disruption to individual’s life quality by recognizing the symptoms of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and their impact on a person’s occupational performance. The Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and-Engagement (CMOP-E) provides a holistic theoretical framework to analyze the impact of ME/CFS on occupational performance and assists in the identification of non-pharmacological interventions. Discussion on the importance of engagement to persons’ health and well-being is reviewed and barriers to participation are highlighted. The CMOP-E framework is recognized as a useful tool in the assessment and treatment for individual’s with ME/CFS. This paper illustrates how occupational therapy practice applies the CMOP-E to help persons with ME/CFS participate actively in daily living tasks and improve function. Additionally, the CMOP-E framework, which is widely adopted in occupational therapy practice, can be applied in multidisciplinary rehabilitative treatments to improve patients’ health and quality of life. The review also proposes some recommendations/guidelines for designing treatment interventions for ME/CFS.

Acupuncture, including electroacupuncture, is an important modality in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Acupuncture has been increasingly used in Europe and North America in the past forty years. Its widening acceptance demands continual safety assessment. This pilot study evaluated the frequency and severity of Adverse Events (AE) for electroacupuncture in a teaching clinic. Needle-only acupuncture has a documented high patient satisfaction rate and low Adverse Event (AE) rate. Our study demonstrated that the satisfaction with and safety of electroacupuncture and needle-only acupuncture are similar.

The primary goal of medicine, whether CAM or orthodox is to provide better patient care and improved well-being. Unfortunately, the classification of medicine into orthodox or mainstream western medicine and unorthodox, which includes Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Traditional Medicine (TM) has created a long standing debate. The debate remains mostly healthy and has led to significant public enlightenment and policy changes. The emergence of integrative medicine for instance is partly an outcome of this dialogue. However, due to strong ideological underpinnings of the debate, it has very often distracted from what the primary goal should be, which is supporting and promoting public right to healthcare access and the right to choose treatments that do not compromise safety. Unfortunately, it is the negative aspects of the debate between CAM and orthodox medicine that have often drawn greater attention. The debate is both contentious and highly politicized [1], and the arguments underpinned by vested status, social and economic interests. In the midst of this struggle for supremacy and hegemony, over the right and wrong type of medicine, the greatest loser has been the ordinary people who consequently receive less than optimal care than they should have. The purpose of this paper is to briefly explore the basis and facts of the arguments for and against CAM therapy and integrative medicine, and to propose a possible model for achieving the goals of supporting consumer choice, promoting wellness, and providing unrestrained access to healthcare that is universally accessible and affordable.

The prevalence of illness increases as we age; at the same time, life expectancy decreases. Ayurveda, has got the potential for prevention of diseases by health promotion and management of diseases occurring in old age. We discuss lifestyle recommendations such as smoking cessation, exercise, Yoga, Rasayana therapy and good nutrition. Jarachikitsa or Rasayana is a unique therapeutic methodology to delay ageing and to minimize the intensity of problems occurring this degenerative phase of one’s life. Future aging can be reduced before the occurrence of old age. In fact the ideal time for treating the geriatric problems is youth. Adherence to discipline in youth keeps the geriatric problems away. By adopting a healthier lifestyle, the risk of noncommunicable chronic disease can be reduced. The Government of India launched a national campaign to popularize the strength of Ayurveda and Yoga in geriatric health care. It is the demand of the hour to develop an effective holistic protocol for geriatric care by combining Rasayana, Panchkarma, Dietetics, Ayurvedic medicines, lifestyle and Yoga is timely.

Health supplements have special claims on common areas of health concern. The claims are usually supported only with traditional practices and common beliefs. In the current era of evidence-based practices, one would expect serious commitments, using modern research technologies, on the scientific explorations on the efficacies of the supplements. On the other hand, since health supplements carry the role of disease prevention and health maintenance, they should not be expected to go through strict assessment procedures like pharmaceuticals. Unlike the production of chemical drugs which has little difficulty over uniformity and quality control, medicinal herbs are grown in small plots of cultivations which do not guarantee uniform production. Standard procedures of authentication, from gross appearances, histology to chemical profiling are all required to facilitate repetition of research and development of potential market products. Full use of available biological tests, from cellular, to molecular and genomic studies should be utilized to work out the biological and pharmacological activities of the herbs under study. Animal experiments follow in-vitro platforms. To give genuine proof of efficacy of the study herb or herbal formula, clinical trials following the standard recommendations advocated in the research production of pharmaceuticals, should be conducted. The supplement thus developed would command an efficacy near to the requirements of a pharmaceutical, against a specially chosen health target. Development of a cardio-vascular protective tonic is chosen as an example. The research development of a specific health supplement requires that the best available quality of herbs is used and their mechanism of action, not only limited to laboratory data, but also clinical evidences is worked out.

Objective: As the development of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), more and more researchers engage in the study of TCM. Meanwhile, some aspects of TCM are paid more attention by TCM researchers, which are regarded as specific hotspot research directions on the field of TCM. These hotspot research directions can help the researchers understand the dynamic change of TCM researches and guide their future research plan. Therefore, it is meaningful to mine hotspots of TCM from the existing database. Methods: Based on the E-utilities interface of PubMed, the source data can be obtained. They are 10291 abstracts on TCM including manually annotated MeSH terms. Moreover, two hotspot detection schemes are developed according to the characteristics of the source data, one is based on Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms co-occurrence while the other is based on text network. Results: From the experiments results on different hotspot detection schemes, similar key words are obtained to describe major research directions of TCM. Then, according to domain knowledge and practical experience of TCM experts, four consistent hotspots are derived with two different hotspot detection schemes. As shown in the followings: (1) Research on Chinese medical formula and its mechanism of action, (2) Research on pharmacology and pharmacodynamics of antineoplastic agent in TCM, (3) Research on the therapy of chronic diseases in TCM, and (4) Research on traditional therapy methods in TCM. Conclusion: We study the hotspots detection and dynamic change for TCM research directions on PubMed. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Although the proposed schemes are applied to TCM in our research, they also can be extended to other academic fields.