More Mind-Body Connection

The facts continue to pile up about the Mind-Body connection but doctors continue to ignore it or dismiss it as so much "woo-woo" New Age mumbo-jumbo. The latest evidence comes from research with 1,032 adults with whiplash injuries in Sweden.

"There is a dose-response relation between recovery expectations and the degree of subsequent disability," accord to Dr. Lena Holm of the Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm. Surveys were taken about 23 days after their accident and again six months later.

As expected those with less initial disability had higher expectations for recovery. But more thorough review produced an interesting discovery. Compared with individuals reporting the highest expectations of recovery, those with the lowest expectations were FOUR TIMES more likely to have higher disability and TWO TIMES more likely to have moderate disability six months later.

In other words, early identification of people with low expectations for recovery from whiplash injuries may be a better indicator of future disability. No mention of whether Sweden will begin using some type of complementary or alternative therapy to improve expectations.