Thursday, February 26, 2009

I am exhausted!!!

I have been in a running conversation on Facebook all day long talking about what is going on in Australia. I didn't blog yesterday because I was suddenly approached by the Reflexology Association of Australia. They are apparently applying to become a part of the health care system. They wanted to use our latest research publication, Evidence-Based Reflexology for Health Professionals and Researchers to send to the Health Ministry as back up to their application.

I mentioned this on Facebook which set off a day long conversation about what is going to be need to be included in the health care system of any country. You can't blame people who aren't researchers to understand this issues so here is a short primer.

1) You need evidenced based research. That means the studies are done to scientific standards and that the studies show evidence that reflexology is effective for certain conditions i.e. diabetes.

2) The gold standard of research is double blind, controlled studies. But there are other credible research studies.

3) The studies to be considered legitimate they need to be in peer reviewed journals. That means they have a review board of professionals that review the studies to make sure the studies meet scientific standards.

These are tough standards but the good news is that there is quite a bit of evidence based research on reflexology. And it has appeared in peer reviewed journals.

Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com
http://www.dk.com/reflexology

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