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      Unorthodox Alternative Therapies Marketed to Treat Lyme Disease

      , , , , , ,
      Clinical Infectious Diseases
      Oxford University Press (OUP)

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          Abstract

          Some patients with medically unexplained symptoms or alternative medical diagnoses suspect that they chronically suffer from the tick-borne infection Lyme disease. These patients are commonly targeted by providers of alternative therapies. This study was designed to identify and characterize the range of unorthodox alternative therapies advertised to patients with a diagnosis of Lyme disease.

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          Most cited references11

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          A critical appraisal of "chronic Lyme disease".

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            Alternative medicine and common errors of reasoning.

            Why do so many otherwise intelligent patients and therapists pay considerable sums for products and therapies of alternative medicine, even though most of these either are known to be useless or dangerous or have not been subjected to rigorous scientific testing? The author proposes a number of reasons this occurs: (1) Social and cultural reasons (e.g., many citizens' inability to make an informed choice about a health care product; anti-scientific attitudes meshed with New Age mysticism; vigorous marketing and extravagant claims; dislike of the delivery of scientific biomedicine; belief in the superiority of "natural" products); (2) psychological reasons (e.g., the will to believe; logical errors of judgment; wishful thinking, and "demand characteristics"); (3) the illusion that an ineffective therapy works, when actually other factors were at work (e.g., the natural course or cyclic nature of the disease; the placebo effect; spontaneous remission; misdiagnosis). The author concludes by acknowledging that when people become sick, any promise of a cure is beguiling. But he cautions potential clients of alternative treatments to be suspicious if those treatments are not supported by reliable scientific research (criteria are listed), if the "evidence" for a treatment's worth consists of anecdotes, testimonials, or self-published literature, and if the practitioner has a pseudoscientific or conspiracy-laden approach, or promotes cures that sound "too good to be true."
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              Why do patients seek a second opinion or alternative medicine?

              The objectives of the study were (a) to determine psychosocial determinants of two measures of health care use: seeking a second opinion and alternative medicine use, and (b) to assess whether changes in these two measures of health care use had taken place during the past 4 to 5 years. All patients attending a university-based gastroenterology clinic were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 83% (N = 341). Health locus of control, scepticism toward medicine, satisfaction with health care, and perceived health status were included as potential determinants. Sixteen percent (21) of the new patients (95% confidence interval, 10.0-22.8) sought a second opinion compared to 7.5% (95% confidence interval, 4.3-10.7) 5 years ago. Seeking a second opinion was negatively related to internal locus of control, perceived health status, and demanding to know all details of treatment. Eight percent (28) of all patients (95% confidence interval, 5.3-11.1) saw an alternative practitioner for the same problem for which they saw the gastroenterologist compared to 9% (95% confidence interval, 6.2-12.8) 4 years ago. Using alternative medical care was positively related to scepticism toward conventional medicine and negatively related to perceived health status and satisfaction with clinic physicians. Knowledge about the incidence and determinants of these behaviors provides valuable information for clinicians in communicating with their patients and may eventually result in cost containment.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Clinical Infectious Diseases
                Clinical Infectious Diseases
                Oxford University Press (OUP)
                1058-4838
                1537-6591
                May 25 2015
                June 15 2015
                April 06 2015
                June 15 2015
                : 60
                : 12
                : 1776-1782
                Article
                10.1093/cid/civ186
                4490322
                25852124
                3e6b679d-5278-4729-b13a-3aa9b1ee425d
                © 2015
                History

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