Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 42
To evaluate the benefit women gain from homoeopathic treatment. Benefit was defined as a measurable reduction of self-reported symptoms associated with the menopause.
Since 1998 the NHS Community Health PMS/Menopause clinic in Sheffield has been offering women homoeopathic treatment as an alternative to HRT. An audit was undertaken of all patients referred to the homoeopathy service from January 2001 to December 2003 (n = 124). Patients who were menopausal by the doctors’ assessment were offered up to six appointments with a homoeopath. Patients were prescribed individualised homoeopathic medicines at each appointment. Patients named the two symptoms that bothered them the most and scored them on a scale of 0 (as good as it can be) to 6 (as bad as it could be) using a validated patient-generated outcome measure (MYMOP).
MYMOP data was collected at the initial and final appointments for 102 women (88.7%). The results based on the data relating to theses 102 cases show that the average MYMOP scores changed by –2.22 for symptom 1 and –1.77 for symptom 2 (negative change = improve-improvement). Symptoms provided by the patients were then grouped for analysis. Vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes, night sweats, flushes) were the most commonly reported and improved by –2.04 (n = 45).
The positive results of this study show clearly identifiable short- and medium-term benefit of homoeopathic treatment for women with distressing menopausal symptoms as detected by MYMOP scores.
University of Sheffield, Sheffield NHS PMS/Menopause Clinic.
