Integrative Services

Treating the Whole Patient
Beverly Hills Cancer Center is a pioneer in whole health and wellness medicine. We utilize a team approach headed by our physicians, integrating some of the best science and technology that western medicine has to offer, with proven holistic healing techniques that can strengthen and support the immune system to improve the healing process.  Our multi-dimensional approach encompasses:  nutritional education, psychotherapy, massage, laughter therapy, Eastern medical traditions (acupuncture, Tai Chi and herbal medicine) and the self-healing modalities of yoga, meditation, relaxation exercise, guided imagery, lifestyle modification and environmental education. 

For people living with cancer and other illnesses, these integrative services can transform the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of their lives. We provide treatment strategies and options that empower individuals to achieve their optimum state of well-being every step of the way.  Our unsurpassed integrative services and patient advocacy programs enable our patients to pursue their highest priority: reclaiming their TOTAL health — mind, body, and spirit. 

Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture

What is Chinese Medicine?
Chinese Medicine is the oldest form of internal medicine, being over 5,000 years old.  Chinese Medicine includes acupuncture and herbal medicines, which can significantly reduce or eliminate symptoms of most illnesses.  Heather Lounsbury, L.Ac., with over 14 years experience as an acupuncturist and herbalist, is a part of our integrative medicine team at Beverly Hills Cancer Center.  She uses a variety of holistic approaches, including Chinese medicine, to support her patients’ healing process. 

• Acupuncture - How does it work?
  Acupuncture is the placement of disposable, hair-thin needles into specific points along energy channels on the body. Qi (your body’s energy) flows within these meridians or pathways. Stimulating qi flow balances a person to relieve symptoms and eliminate an illness.  Acupuncture causes physical responses in nerves cells, the pituitary gland, and various parts of the brain. These responses can cause the body to release proteins, hormones, and brain chemicals that control a number of the body’s functions. It affects blood pressure and body temperature, boosts the immune system, and causes the body's natural painkillers to be released.

• Chinese Herbal Medicine - How does it work?
  Chinese Herbal Medicine combines a variety of herbs to create a unique formula for each patient. A customized herbal prescription is administered based on the individual’s symptoms and constitution. Chinese herbal medicine’s goal is to treat the source of a problem and eradicate it.

What can Chinese Medicine help with?
Chinese medicine can help with any side effects related to chemotherapy and radiation, including, but not limited to:  Nausea/vomiting, fatigue, weakened immunity, stress, anxiety, pain, bruising, post operative swelling, hair loss, anemia, skin issues, hot flashes, digestive disorders, loss of appetite, and detoxification/elevated liver enzymes.  It can also reduce many cancer related symptoms. Acupuncture treatments add to a patient’s sense of well being and decrease the malaise associated with any chronic disease, especially cancer.

Human studies at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the effect of acupuncture on the immune system of cancer patients showed that it improved immune system response. It was proven that acupuncture reduced the amount of pain in some cancer patients. In one study, most of the patients treated with acupuncture were able to stop taking drugs for pain relief or to take smaller doses. Several types of clinical trials using different acupuncture methods showed acupuncture reduced nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, surgery, and morning sickness.

Nutritional and herbal support is an aid in boosting immune response in cancer patients, along with minimizing the immune and white blood cell suppression that occurs with most chemotherapeutic agents.  Kenneth Conklin, M.D., Ph.D., an anesthesiologist at UCLA working with the Oncology Department, reports gratifying results utilizing nutrition and supplements combined with acupuncture.
 

Psychotherapy

When a person suffers from a significant illness, it is often the case that the patient and his or her immediate family are affected. The response can be in the form of depression and/or anxiety as well as elevated levels of stress (for the patient, caretakers, spouses, family, etc.). These are the normal responses that occur in about half of cancer patients. Each person and family have their own typical coping capacity, but new realities require adaptation. Our psychotherapist will work with you and/or others important in your life to help strengthen your coping capacity deal with anxiety and depression, if they are there, and other issues which may keep you up at night. No concern is “too small” to raise. You will be treated with compassion and respect, and the work together will hopefully turn into a collaborative and supportive effort.

Nutrition

It is never too late to embrace a healthy lifestyle including choosing foods that are supportive to your immune system.  Every time you choose a fruit, vegetable, bean or whole grain item you are adding a brick to the foundation of your health.  The appropriate nutrition is especially important in the cancer patient for healing, fighting infection, maintaining body weight, rebuilding tissue, preventing body tissue from breaking down and for providing energy.  Nutrition is an essential, ongoing and active part of your lifestyle that we will help you plan during cancer treatment, through recovery and beyond.

Our Certified Nutrition Specialist, Carolyn Katzin, MS, CNS, has over twenty years of experience creating personalized nutrition plans for cancer patients as they journey through their treatment and for their future.  She brings a caring and knowledgeable approach to this complex topic making personalized and practical recommendations for you and your specific illness.  She also provides you with written suggestions to reduce treatment side effects and improve appetite, energy levels, mood, overall health and wellbeing.  Each patient gets a complimentary copy of her book, “The Cancer Nutrition Center Handbook,” which explains the three stages in a cycle of nutrition and cancer, offering important tips and over 100 tasty and appropriate recipes for each stage.  The information is arranged to assist those newly diagnosed as well as those who have been battling cancer for a while. 

Careful selection of foods, supplements, meal size and timing can all make a huge difference in how you feel.  Our Certified Nutrition Specialist will work with your entire team to assist you in ensuring you are fully hydrated, eating sufficient calories and maintaining your weight.  She may suggest you do a body fat test which is an accurate way to determine hydration and your resting metabolic rate.  This is quick, non invasive and is a useful tool in monitoring your progress. 

You will need a prescription for this service which is available by appointment on Tuesdays at the Center.

Massage

Massage is one of the oldest most commonly used healing art forms, in both science and art. Beverly Hills Cancer Center signature massages rejuvenate the body, relax the mind, and renew the soul. Our experienced therapist combines careful training with intuition to locate areas of tension and stress to customize each massage to your individual needs. Upon arrival, you may choose from head messages for pure relaxation, back massage for tense shoulders, full body massage to wash away the stress, or foot massage using acupressure and reflexology techniques for ease in all parts of the body. Please be sure to mention any health concerns you may have when you make your appointment.

Laughter/Humor

At Beverly Hills Cancer Center, we provide laughter therapy for our patients to improve the healing process and overall quality of life.  Laughter therapy includes the appropriate, compassionate and sensitive implementation of entertaining films and television during medical treatments such as chemotherapy.  Studies have shown that humor therapy can reduce the side effects, pain and anxiety of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments.  Rx Laughter is the premiere humor therapy organization, and we have asked them to join us in this endeavor.  

Rx Laughter’s prestigious and credible work is based upon their published research with the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute & Hospital.  Their research indicates a significant ability for patients to tolerate painful medical procedures longer and with less anxiety while enjoying uplifting, humorous entertaining films and television—even though they did not always laugh out loud.  In a separate study with the National Cancer Institute in Thailand, adult cancer patients reported results including noticeably less pain and depression, while also reporting improved sleep, mood and overall quality of life.  Rx Laughter Founder Sherry Dunay Hilber believes that "perhaps a smile, a soft chuckle or even a grin can all be medically effective in their own unique ways—perhaps even more so than laughing out loud in some instances."  Further, research findings also suggested that humor therapy can make the memory of a medical treatment experience less distressing in between sessions, offering relief for the body and soul throughout the entire treatment process.

At Beverly Hills Cancer Center, each patient’s clinical team (physician, nurse, psychotherapist, etc.) will work together with Rx Laughter to see how humor therapy can best help each individual patient both physically and emotionally.  The goal of this collaboration is to strengthen the immune system and increase relaxation and happiness, while reducing the side effects of treatment for our patients such as lack of appetite, nausea, pain, and depression. Laughter is implemented in the most sensitive and caring manner possible for each patient at all times.

For more information on laughter/humor therapy, please call our center or visit www.RxLaughter.org.

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