Course Info: NS-0120

This course was designed to introduce students to complementary and alternative concepts in healing. Students worked in teams of 3-4 to investigate an area of interest in the health sciences. The groups made extensive use of the primary scientific and medical literature in an effort to understand the use, effectiveness and limitations of the particular treatments or approaches selected. Each team member was responsible for some aspect of the research and reported back to the whole group. The groups presented their findings to the whole class. The students' goal was to assess the effectiveness of the various therapies by examining the available data carefully, explaining the methodologies employed to look at the treatment and critically reading the authors' conclusions. Examples of the projects include acupuncture and pain, acupuncture and osteoarthritis, yoga in stress reduction, herbal remedies for allergies, art therapy in PTSD, and the use of music therapy in chronic stress. Each student had the opportunity to work in two different groups over the semester and to complete two projects and presentations. Students also wrote biweekly critiques of papers from the primary literature and revised these based on the instructor's comments. The second revision was done using peer editing and the final compilation of the three critiques were used in putting together their final papers. All students were also introduced to elementary aspects of data analysis and statistics and some basic immunology. We also had presentations in message therapy and acupuncture by local practitioners. A final portfolio of all work was used to evaluate the students progress.