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J Immigrant Minority Health (2012) 14:433440 DOI 10.1007/s10903-011-9538-6
ORIGINAL PAPER
Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine for Survivors of Torture and Refugee Trauma: A Descriptive Report
Ellen Silver Higheld Puja Lama
Michael A. Grodin Ted J. Kaptchuk
Sondra S. Crosby
Published online: 18 October 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract Refugees with trauma histories are a difcult medical population to treat. Acupuncture care has gained acceptance in many mainstream hospitals in the United States, but research on acupuncture and refugee populations is limited. Herein, we report our experiences with 50 refugees (total acupuncture treatments = 425) at a major tertiary teaching hospital. Patients often reported extreme trauma including physical torture, rape and witnessing the same in family members. Patients represented 13 different
countries, with about half the patients being Somali. The primary complaint of all patients was pain (100%). Using the Wong-Baker Faces Pain scale, 56% patients reported pain decreases. Patient acceptance of acupuncture was high. We provide three case histories as illustrative examples. Further research is warranted.
Keywords Refugee Trauma survivor Acupuncture
Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative
medicine
Background
A refugee is dened as a person unable and unwilling to return to his or her country of origin because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion (The Immigration and Nationality Act. Sec. 101(a)(42). The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 10.4 million refugees were receiving protection or assistance from the UNHCR at the end of 2009) [1]. An asylum seeker is a person seeking to be granted protection as a refugee outside their country of origin, and is awaiting the determination of his/her status. The United States is one of the largest receivers of refugees and had 78,700 applications for asylum led in 2010 [2]. Refugees and asylum seekers to the United States are a highly traumatized and vulnerable population who have often been exposed to multiple physical and psychological traumas, including torture [3, 4]. The physical and psychological sequelae of such traumas can include chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder [58].
E. S. Higheld (&)
Department of Family Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, USAe-mail: Ellen.higheld@bmc.org
P. LamaBoston University...