Palliative In-Patient Cancer Treatment in an Anthroposophic Hospital: II. Quality of Life during and after Stationary Treatment, and Subjective Treatment Benefits*

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for comprehensive forms of palliative cancer care, meeting physical as well as emotional, cognitive, spiritual and social needs. Therapy programs of anthroposophic hospitals are aimed at improving health and quality of life (QoL) at these levels. However, data on the influence of these programs on QoL of patients with advanced cancer are scarce. Patients and Methods: 144 in-patients with advanced epithelial cancers were treated at the anthroposophic Lukas Klinik, Arlesheim, Switzerland. QoL was assessed upon admission, discharge and after 4 months, using 20 functional scales from the questionnaires EORTC QLQ-C30, HADS and SELT-M. Statistical testing was performed with the Wilcoxon signed rank test. At month 4, subjectively perceived benefits from anthroposophic medicine (AM) and conventional cancer therapy (CCT) were assessed by telephone. Objective: The aim was to provide an account of global, physical, emotional, cognitive-spiritual and social QoL developments in advanced cancer patients, during and after in-patient AM treatment, and to investigate subjective benefits from AM and CCT. Results: QoL improvements were observed in all 20 dimensions (12 significant). Compared to related studies, improvements were fairly high. At month 4, QoL scores had decreased but were still above baseline in all 20 dimensions. Both AM and CCT were perceived as beneficial. Conclusion: Our data provide evidence that in-patient therapy at an anthroposophic hospital can lead to significant QoL improvements, especially in emotional, but also global, physical, cognitive-spiritual and social aspects. Benefits of AM were experienced on the physical, emotional, cognitive- spiritual and social level. Benefits of CCT were tumor-focused.

Anthroposophic Therapy for Anxiety Disorders: A Two-year Prospective Cohort Study in Routine Outpatient Settings

“…9,10,13 Previous studies have found beneficial effects of AM therapies on anxiety in cancer patients. 51,52 The present study is the first to demonstrate improvement of patients with anxiety disorders under AM treatment.…”

Ergebnis einer integrativen Behandlung bei stationären Patienten mit chronischen Leiden - eine Beobachtungsstudie

“…Diverse klinische Studien konnten belegen, dass stationäre Behandlungen mit einem naturheilkundlichen [10,11,12,13,14,15] oder integrativen [16,17,18,19] Ansatz zu einer wesentlichen und nachhaltigen Verbesserung der gesamten LQ führen.…”

“…Die vergleichbar niedrige Anzahl von stationären Patienten (n = 144) in der Erhebung von Heusser at al. [19] lässt auf eine ähnliche Problematik in der Rekrutierung von stationären Patienten in den anthroposophischen Kliniken in der Schweiz schliessen.…”

“…In den übrigen Studien sind die Vorgeschichten der gemischten Patientenkollektive vergleichbar lang. Diese Angaben bestätigen die Beobachtung anderer Autoren, dass komplementärmedizinische Angebote eher von Patienten mit komplexen (Polymorbidität) und lang anhaltenden Leiden (Chronizität) in Anspruch genommen werden [1,19,20]. …”

“…In der grössten der analysierten Studien waren die Effektgrössen zum Zeitpunkt der Entlassung höher (0,86) als bei dem Follow-up nach 6 Monaten (0,62) [15]. Die allmähliche Verschlechterung des gesundheitlichen Zustands der entlassenen Patienten wird regelmässig beobachtet (Auswascheffekt) [11,13,15,16,17,19] und könnte den relativ hohen Effekt unserer Patienten bei der Entlassung erklären. Das Follow-up unserer Patienten betrug nur 4 Wochen.…”