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Introduction: Integrative medicine inpatient treatment can improve health-related quality of life and mental health in chronically ill patients. This study aimed to explore the potential effect of a 14-day integrative inpatient treatment on chronically ill patients' self-management skills and resources; also focusing on gender specific effects. Materials and methods: A longitudinal prospective cohort study without a control group was conducted at the Department for Complementary and Integrative Medicine. The intervention consisted of individualized conventional and complementary medical treatments; the latter including mind/body techniques. The main outcomes were patients' self-management skills and resources according to the FERUS-questionnaire which measures motivation-to-change, coping, self-observation, self-efficacy, self-verbalization, hope and social support. FERUS data were compared before and after 14 days of hospital inpatient treatment, using repeated measurement ANOVA, with time as within-subject and gender as well as the amount of received mind/body interventions as between-subject factors. Results: Data from 73 patients between September and October 2007 (55 female, 51.5. ±. 13.5 years) were available. Statistical analyses showed significant overall increases in patients' self-management skills on the coping, self-observation, self-verbalization and social support FERUS sub-scales (. p

Introduction: Chronic diseases are one of the biggest challenges for future medicine. Empowering patients to adopt a health promoting lifestyle and to learn effective coping strategies seems essential for successful therapy. Integrative medicine might provide such strategies to promote healthy lifestyle changes by means of Mind/Body therapies. Concept: The Department for Internal and Integrative Medicine at Kliniken Essen-Mitte, academic teaching Hospital of the University Duisburg-Essen, offers an Integrative Day Care Clinic with the focus on lifestyle management as part of standard care. The program utilizes Mind/Body therapies and components from cognitive therapy to increase patient's coping. Case reports: Three cases, attending the Integrative Day Care Clinic, are presented here. Cases reveal that the Integrative Day Care Clinic may be effective for all patients who do contribute to the program and make necessary lifestyle changes. The most frequently reported changes do not concern symptom severity, but acceptance, coping and self-efficacy, especially in stressful situations. Satisfaction with the therapy is high. Conclusion: An Integrative Day Care Clinic group program appears to indicate positive effects for patients with chronic diseases. These results are supported by the results of several randomized controlled trials in patients with chronic diseases. Further superior quality trials and qualitative approaches are necessary to provide reliable results and more insight into the nature of the effects. © 2012 Elsevier GmbH.

Purpose: Acupuncture has been traditionally applied to functional dyspepsia (FD). The aim of present study was to evaluate the effect of acupuncture treatment on FD using proportion of responder (PR), questionnaires and plasma ghrelin hormone. Methods: Total 76 eligible patientswere randomly assigned to 2 groups: acupuncture treatment group and waitlist control group. A treatment period was 4 weeks and acupuncture was administered twice weekly, 15minutes for each session. The outcomeswere the (i) PR, (ii) Nepean dyspepsia index – Korean version (NDI–K), (iii) Functional dyspepsia related quality of life (FD–QOL), (iv) Beck’s depression inventory (BDI), (v) State– trait anxiety inventory (STAI) and (vi) Plasma level of ghrelin hormone. Results: Acupuncture treatment group showed significantly higher PR than waitlist control group after 4 weeks of therapeutic period. The treatment group also had a significant improvement in NDI–K compared with waitlist control group. FD– QOL, BDI and STAI showed significant improvement after treatment in only acupuncture group. The plasma level of ghrelin showed no significant difference between 2 groups. Conclusion: Acupuncture treatment might have effect on FD in comparison with waitlist control group. However, it is still unclear to the association of ghrelin level with clinical effect of acupuncture. Contact: Seok-Jae Ko, kokokoko119@hanmail.net