Sole Searching Jul-sep 2009

ISSUE 3 July — September 2009

YSS Kendra

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I would like you to know ,that different teachers are taking classes at different places, but one class going on at YSS Kendra ,Gurgaon is special, this is conducted by Mr.I.P. Bahl only for YSS Members and is absolutely free. This is a charitable work for the benefit of fellow brothers and sisters.

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ALL INDIA ASSOCIATION OF ACUPRESSURE REFLEXOLOGY (R)

Giving you information about the activities of our Association .

On 6th June 2009 I visited this centre and met all the students there, it was so

nice to see centre is very beautiful and divine place. Classes were taking place at the first floor.

In the hall there were eleven students with Mr. Bahl . Students belonged to all groups —young, middle aged and Senior citizens also. They were all very enthusiastic about reflexology and also about our Association. They all became life members of the Association. During the discussion about the

therapy and its benefits ,they also shared their experiences. They told us about their intention of starting a charitable clinic at the Gurgaon YSS Kendra which is really a good news and beautiful gesture to help the humanity through this wonderful therapy. As.the proper working with this therapy is giving good results to all the therapists so i call it “A WONDERFUL THERAPY”.

YSS Members with I.P. Bahl & Kusam Aggarwal

By The General Secretary This is the special issue on EPILEPSY. We are releasing this on the eve of the talk by Dr. Krishna Dalal, Head, Dept. of Biophysics, AIIMS, on the subject. Here we have tried our best to give information on „Epilepsy‟- its myth

and reality. Invitation of the talk has already sent to all our members. Those who missed this talk can log on to our website www.reflexology.co.in to see the pictures and videos of the function.

Inside this issue:

I am repeatedly asking the members who have shifted or changed their phones to kindly update their details with the Association office so that the newsletter and other information can be sent to them on time. I hope you all will understand and do the needful.

Special points of interest:

Reflexology & Intractable Epilepsy

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Epilepsy

3

An Experience by a Daughter

4

Myths about Epilepsy

4

Did You Know?

5

Foot Chart

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Understand Your Blood Tests

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 Reflexology in addition to the AEDs may be efficient in treating the patients suffering from intractable epilepsy.  Potassium is found primarily inside the cells of the body. Low levels in the blood may indicate severe diarrhea, alcoholism, or excessive use of water pills.  Around 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy. Nearly 90% of the people with epilepsy are found in developing regions.

Introduction: Wikipedia on 'neurological disorders' defines "Epilepsy" as a common and chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. The world wide prevalence of epilepsy is about 0.5-1% in the general population with almost 80% of these people being in developing countries. Epilepsy is more likely to occur in young children or people over the age of 65 years; however it can occur at any time. Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy become nonresponsive in seizure control even with the best available anti epileptic drugs (AEDs). Comparatively implanted vagus stimulation (VNS) is known to be a safe modality in the treatment of epilepsy, yet quite a number of side effects are reported in the literature. Apart from being expensive, directly implanted VNS induces the most common side effects such as bradyarrhythmia, hoarseness, cough, dysphonia, voice change, paresthesias, nausea, asystolia etc. The patients, who are surgical failures or not the ideal surgical candidates at the same time non -responders of the AEDs, demand to opt for a complementary medical therapy. Reflexology is one of such a noninvasive, non-pharmacological medical therapy which can be applied easily to any person at any time. It has also been mentioned in the literatures that reflexology can be applied holistically without introducing any adverse side effect. In view of this, the efficacy of reflexology has been critically determined in a clinical trial conducted in the laboratory of the department of Biophysics, A I I M S with a view to finding out the role of reflexology in treating refractory epilepsy.

Introduction to reflexology: The term „reflexology‟ is recently included to English dictionary. The literary meaning of Page 2

BY Dr. Krishna Dalal, Head Department of Biophysics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences

reflexology is "a therapy for treating certain disorders by massaging feet, hands, ears and head, using the principles similar to those of acupuncture". Recollecting all information available in the literature so far and keeping the main theme of reflexology in tact position, one can define reflexology as follows: It is the science of studying human health through the reflex areas of all body parts. These specific areas, on the application of external stimulations, produce the physiological responses which are carried through the reflex activities to the corresponding organ(s), gland(s) and nerve(s). That is to say, one is able to rectify the dysfunctional state of the target organs, glands and nerves directly through the corresponding reflex areas. Accordingly, in order to help heal and to detect the functional status of any organ or gland or nerve, one need not to touch either of them directly but to stimulate externally the corresponding reflex area(s) which are lying on all over the body much remote from the stated ones.

According to mapping of reflex areas located on the body, there are many nomenclatures available in literature, for example, Sujok ,G-Jo, Shiatsu, yogicexercise, acupuncture meridians/points, meridian therapy, zone therapy, magneto therapy, hand reflexology, foot reflexology, ear reflexology, tongue diagnosis/ reflexology etc.

One has to apply external stimulations to these reflex areas in order to correct dysfunctional state(s) of internal body part(s) and to bring back homeostasis in body system function. According to different techniques of applying external stimulations, there are also different nomenclatures. A few of them may be mentioned in this context viz., acupressure therapy, acupuncture therapy, burning moxa (or heat wave therapy), magneto-therapy, LA-

SER stimulation, Infra Red therapy, high frequency electromagnetic waves therapy etc. Either a single or a combination of these modes is applied as stimulating agent(s). Acupressure foot reflexology applies the specific techniques to produce mechanical waves which are generated by alternate pressure and relaxation by fingers or wooden/plastic implements on the foot following the particular foot maps of reflex areas.

Materials and method: In the clinical trial we have used acupressure foot- and hand-reflexology. A sample size of 84 patients was recruited from the outpatient department of Neurology, A I I M S. They were the persons who had been suffering from confirmed epilepsy diagnosed with relevant neurophysiological tests and had been receiving conventional therapies from this institute. They were found to be nonresponsive to the AEDs, surgically failures and were not the candidates for epilepsy surgery. Patients with at least two AEDs with adequate doses confirmed by serum drug levels and suffering from epilepsy for more than 2 years were admitted in to this study. It was mandatory that each patient in the study group should have some arrangement of staying around the location of the laboratory so that they would be present at least 2 times per week for a period initial 2½-3 months. It was also mandatory that each one of the patients would be adequately complied by one‟s caregiver at the preferred place. They also agreed of their own to participate in this study by submitting their written consent. The patients excluded from the study were brain tumor, encephalitis, meningitis, tuberculosis, HIV-infection and malignancy of any kind. The study period was 1 year 6 months including training period.

The reflex areas stimulated are: solar plexus, spine, lymphatic system, urinary system, digestive system including liver, lower limbs and all the toes. These were stimulated by (i) thumb walking technique, (ii) pin-pointing technique and (ii) hook-and-back up technique. The reflex areas of the brain were avoided. ISSUE 3

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REFLEXOLOGY & INTRACTABLE EPILEPSY

Foot Chart

Did You Know?  Epilepsy is a physical condition characterized by sudden, brief changes in how the brain works. It is a symptom of a neurological disorder - a disorder that affects the brain and shows itself in the form of seizures.  Due to the stigma surrounding epilepsy and the prejudice with which society has historically treated people with epilepsy, many with the disorder are reluctant to admit it or

to seek treatment. Thus the prevalence of epilepsy is likely much higher.

 Each year an average of 15,500 people learn that they have epilepsy; 44% are diagnosed before the age of 5, 55% before the age of 10, 75-85% before age 18 and 1% of children will have recurrent seizures before age 14. 1.3% are over the age of 60. This means that about 60% of new patients are young children and sen-

ior citizens.

 In approximately 50% of cases of childhood epilepsy, seizures disappear completely.  Throughout history some famous individuals have had epilepsy — Julius Caesar, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Alexander the Great, Alfred Nobel, Socrates, Ludwig van Beethoven, Napoleon Bonaparte, AND MANY OTHERS.

REFLEXOLOGY & INTRACTABLE EPILEPSY CONTINUE... Results: There is a 4.16 fold improvement in the study group patients (AEDs + Reflexology) compared with the control ones (AEDs). The result is 60.5% (average) excellent response for the patients belonging to all the categories. Similarly 11.3 % (average) "good response" and 10.9% (average) "moderate response" are achieved for all the categories. Almost 16% of the study group patients did not respond significantly. It was

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observed that the secondarily generalized tonic and clonic seizures (sGTCS) patients got quick response and seizure frequency reduction were more compared to the complex partial seizures (CPS) patients as well as the patients belonging to the „others‟ category i.e., which include simple partial seizures (SPS), Lennox Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) and myoclonus. It was thus observed that 86% of the samples reported to suffer from pain in the lower limb at the pre-therapy level. Post-therapy data

reveals that 84% patients improved in their lower limb pain with 81% reduction in pain. Conclusion: Reflexology in addition to the AEDs may be efficient in treating the patients suffering from intractable epilepsy. It requires blinded randomized study among larger populations under varying environment and race to establish the effectiveness of this integrated therapy.

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By Kusam Aggarwal

EPILEPSY

E

pilepsy is chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked sei-

C. Uremia, heat stroke D. Ingestion or withdrawal of alcohol or drugs.

zures. These seizures are transient signs and /or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in brain.

Brain Rhythm

REFLEX EPILEPSY

Seizures may have visual symptoms such as brightly coloured lines or spots or total darkness.

Epilepsy attack may be precipitated by a sensory stimulus and may be easily reproduced.

It may show motor movements such as hand clenching ,arm raising or lowering, knee bending .forced eye deviation,

Common examples are following-

head turning, eye blinking, unresponsive staring. Person may shout, moan or cry during the seizure.

Musicogenic ( certain musical tones bring about the attack )

EPILEPSY CAN BE CLASSIFIED AS.. 1. PRIMARY EPILEPSY 2. SECONDARY EPILEPSY 3. REFLEX EPILEPSY

Television epilepsy ( occurs while watching television at close quarters )

Hot water ( pouring hot water only over vertex ) Eating ( by eating some perticuler food or just after eating any food ) Motor seizure ( by movement in vehicle) Sleep seizure ( happens only in sleep)

PRIMARY EPILEPSY Primary epilepsy is idiopathic and cause is not known. Main reason could be positive family history. In this onset is in childhood and background can be generic.

SECONDARY EPILEPSY A. any intracranial disease like cerebral tumours, head injury, cerebrovascular accidents, central nervous system infections. B. Hypoglycemia; hyperglycemia

Epilepsy more likely to occur in young children or people above 65 years of age, however it can occur any time.

RESPONDING TO SEIZURES Main precaution during the seizures is to protect the patient from any self injury. One important thing is to keep him or away from sharp objects or any other objects like glass etc. which can cause any damage.

During the seizure head should be raised by keeping some soft pillow under the head. Nothing should be placed inside the mouth. In case of reflex epilepsy try to remove the cause like switch off television or music etc.

HISTORY OF EPILEPSY Word epilepsy is derived from Greek word epilepsia. In past epilepsy was associated with religious experiences and possession by demons. So it was taken as sacred .as demon attack was the reason for seizure and visions during the seizure were god sent. In some places it was taken as evil spirit attack or person to be possessed by witchcraft or curse from gods and also contagious. In most cultures epileptic persons were shunned, stigmatized and also imprisoned; or taken as mentally retarded. HIPPOCRATES SAID “Epilepsy would cease to be considered divine the day it was understood”. LEGAL ASPECTS Most people diagnosed with epilepsy are forbidden by their local laws from driving the vehicle .Only exception is to those who can prove that their condition has stabilized, or if the seizure only arises from sleep.

SHOULDER PAIN by MANJULA HANAGODU Mr. B , aged 47 , came with a stiff neck. He was not able to turn his neck to one side without pain. One session of Foot Reflexology (FR) relieved his stiffness in neck, but on the next session he came with pain in his left arm and under the shoulder blade for which he had already visited Page 3

an orthopedic doctor but had got no relief . While doing FR he was relieved of shooting pain under the shoulder blade and his arm also felt lighter. Three more sessions of working on the cervical, neck ( side of big toe) and shoulder reflex points , his condition improved. ISSUE 3

EPILEPSY MYTHS Myth: Epilepsy is rare. Fact: More than 2.5 million Americans have epilepsy. Myth: Epilepsy is contagious. Fact: Epilepsy is not contagious. Myth: You should put an object, such as a spoon, in the mouth of a person having a seizure to keep them from swallowing their tongue. Fact: Nothing should be placed in the person‟s mouth. While it is not physically possible to swallow one‟s tongue, if the tongue is relaxed, it could block the breathing passage. Therefore, the person should be turned on his side so the tongue falls away and to the side. Myth: Epilepsy is a psychological condition. Fact: Epilepsy is a medical condition. Seizures are the result of an excessive and disorderly discharge of electrical energy in the brain. Myth: You have to be born with epilepsy. Fact: Epilepsy often

first appears in children and young adults, although anyone can develop epilepsy at any time.

"persons with epilepsy." Myth: Persons with epilepsy have "fits."

Myth: You can’t prevent epilepsy. Fact: While no specific cause can be pinpointed in a majority of epilepsy cases, some causes, such as severe head injuries experienced in falling from a bicycle or sustained in an automobile accident, have been identified. This is why helmet safety is so important for children as a preventive measure. Myth: Epilepsy can be cured. Fact: There is no known cure for epilepsy. However, modern treatment methods can achieve full control of seizures in a majority of cases. Myth: Epilepsy is a lifelong disorder. Fact: Epilepsy is not necessarily a lifelong disorder. Many persons with epilepsy will not have seizures or require medication all of their lives. Myth: Persons with epilepsy are "epileptics." Fact: Persons with epilepsy are individuals who experience chronic, recurrent seizures and prefer being described as

Fact: Persons with epilepsy have recurrent seizures, caused by a sudden and unusual discharge of electrical energy in the brain. The word "fits" is an outdated term for seizures. Myth: Epilepsy is a sign of low intelligence. Fact: Epilepsy is a physical condition, not a mental illness or handicap. Myth: A person having a seizure should be held down. Fact: Don‟t try to restrain the person; this might cause injury. Instead, move anything hard or sharp out of the way, and place something soft under the person‟s head. Myth: Always call an ambulance when a person has a seizure. Fact: Unless the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes, or is followed by a series of seizures, it is seldom necessary to call an ambulance. Myth: You can make a person "snap out" of a seizure. Fact: There is really nothing you can do to end a seizure. The best thing is to be supportive and reassuring once the person regains consciousness.

AN EXPERIENCE OF A DAUGHTER by SHALINI GUPTA It is for my mother [Mrs.Asha], who was suffering from backache and fits. Inspite of all the medication and physiotherapy, she could not relieved. Some relative asked us to try reflexology and we went to Mrs. Kusam for the same. There only my mother got the seizure and I was worried to see her in that situation. It happened before also, but we were helplessly waiting for her to come out of it naturally. Then Kusam Ji did some points immediately and she came out of it

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within seconds. I was amazed to see the result of this wonderful therapy. After that she told me about the benefits of reflexology and then and there I decided to learn this miraculous therapy. My mother used to get regular treatment and I also perform reflexology on her time to time for her epilepsy and other problems. Now the frequency of attacks have exceptionally reduced and whenever she got the seizure, situation is always under control. Moreover, she is not dependent on medicines for her

problem, which is a necessity for any epileptic patient. As there is no cure for epilepsy but medicines can control seizures. When medicines are not working well, surgery or implanted devices are required. Medicines may be needed to maintain even after surgery. For this, Reflexology is a remarkably effective therapy. I am thankful to learn this amazing therapy, as it is boon to many problems.

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A L L I N D I A A S S O C I A T I O N OF A C U P R E S S U R E R E F L E X O L OG Y ( R )

Registered and Centralised Office : 63, Ganga Apartments Alaknanda, New Delhi-110019 Phone: 26020405 E-mail: [email protected]

Right Step Towards Right Direction

We’re on the web! www.reflexology.co.in

All India Association of Acupressure Reflexology (Regd.) is a registered body registered under SR Act XXI of 1860. No. S/25886 of 1994 .

Understand Your Blood Tests POTASSIUM : This element is found primarily inside the cells of the body. Low levels in the blood may indicate severe diarrhea, alcoholism, or excessive use of water pills. Low potassium levels can cause muscle weakness and heart problems. Clinical Adult Range: 3.5-5.0 Optimal Adult Range: 4.0-4.6 Red Flag Range <3.0 or >6.0 mmol/L Common Causes of Potassium Increase: Adrenal hypo-function, cortisol resistance, acidosis, ongoing tissue destruction Common Causes of Potassium Decrease: Diarrhea, diuretic use, kidney problems, adrenal hyperfunction Less Common Causes of Potassium

Decrease: Anemia, over dosage of testosterone, hereditary periodic paralysis, hypertension. GLUCOSE : This is the chief source of energy for all living organisms. A level greater than 105 in someone who has fasted for 12 hours suggests a diabetic tendency. If this level is elevated even in a non-fasting setting one must be concerned that there is a risk for developing diabetes. This is an incredibly powerful test and can predict diabetes ten years or more before one develops the strict definition of diabetes which is levels greater than 120. Common Causes of Glucose Increase: Diabetes, poor carbohydrate utilization, syndrome X Less Common Causes of Glucose Increase: Cerebral lesions, uremia, preg-

nancy, intracranial pressure, Cushing's disease, hyperthyroidism, chronic nephritis, infections, first 24 hours after a severe burn, pancreatitis, cerebral lesions, uremia, early hyperpituitarism Common Causes of Glucose Decrease: Fasting Hypoglycemia Less Common Causes of Glucose Decrease: liver damage, pancreatic adenoma, Addison's disease (adrenal insufficiency), starvation, late hypopituitarism Carcinoma of islet tissue Clinical Adult Range: 70-115 mg/dL Optimal Adult Range: 85-100 mg/dL Red Flag Range <50 or >250 mg/dL Clinical Notes: Order Glycohemoglobin (HGB A1C) with serum glucose values above 160 and to monitor diabetics under therapy.