うつ病に対するホメオパシー  [in Japanese] Homeopathy for Depression  [in Japanese]

うつ病患者の増加は社会問題となっている.長期にわたる投薬治療を受けている患者の中には補完・代替医療(CAM)を希望する人もいる.ホメオパシーはCAMの1つで,ヨーロッパを中心に,従来の治療と統合的に広く用いられている.ホメオパシーでは病気の人のbody・mind・spiritをホリスティックに理解し,症状の全体像を1つのパターンとしてとらえ,それに最も類似している(類似の原則)パターンをもつホメオパシー薬によって,身体のもつ自然治癒過程に働きかけると考えられている.今回,すでに投薬治療を受けているうつ病患者に対してホメオパシーを行った10症例の治療結果を提示する.さらにその中の2症例の回復過程を紹介し,ホメオパシーの治療的意義について考察する.

Background: Recently an increase in the number of depression patients has become a social problem. Some of them seek CAM therapies after having been treated with prolonged conventional treatment. Homeopathy is one of the CAM therapies and a patient-centered medicine. In this system, homeopathic medicine is thought to stimulate the patients' own healing process and its procedure treats the "individual patient as a whole person" by taking into account both psychological and physical symptoms rather than just the disease itself. Subjects and methods: Homeopathic medical procedure is similar to that in conventional practices. In addition, patients are asked about their own physiological and psychological conditions before the practitioner decides on the homeopathic medicine. Ten depression patients who had taken antidepressants were treated with Homeopathy. Result: During two years' homeopathic process (June 2005-May 2007), 5 cases have recovered from depression. Two cases are described in particular detail in this report. Two other cases stopped taking antidepressants and have their symptoms controlled with homeopathic medicines. In another two cases, antidepressant dose was reduced but was not terminated under homeopathic treatment. One case did not continue homeopathic treatment in spite of 6 months of care. Conclusion: Our cases may suggest homeopathic treatment can be a very useful strategy in addition to or instead of conventional treatment for depression.