NIMHANS to treat neuro & mental disorders through holistic care combining allopathy, Ayurveda and Yoga

The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Department of Integrative Medicine is propelling its efforts towards holistic care combining modern medicine, Ayurveda and Yoga to treat the neurological and mental diseases and disorders.

Here three medical experts of allopathy, Ayurveda and Yoga disciplines sit together to formulate a tailor made approach for the patient. To begin with, the patient references came in from our in-house neuro and psychiatry departments and now we are getting referrals from other hospitals. Going by the demand, we see the need for skilling modern medicine doctors in the space of Ayurveda and Yoga. We have now come out with academic courses to create the required medical expertise, said Dr Pratima Murthy, director, NIMHANS.

“We have now embarked on providing empirical evidence to our treatment protocols and are looking for the creation of a One Physician concept who could diagnose and provide the treatment regime adopting modern medicine, Ayurveda and Yoga, she added.

Dr BN Gangadhar, professor emeritus, department of Integrative Medicine and former director, NIMHANS, stated, “ So long modern medicine, Ayurveda and Yoga worked in silos. We need to overcome this and healthcare services should made to be inclusive.”

“Practicing yoga 5 days per week for 12 weeks was shown to be useful for patients taking anti-depressants for mild to moderate depression was proven in our initial randomized controlled clinical trials. Further studies demonstrated that 12-week yoga practice led to enhancement in brain derived neuro-trophic factors levels. This reinforced our efforts in pursuing integrative medicine,” he added.

Another funded randomized controlled trial in depression led by Dr K Muralidharan, Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Superintendent, NIMHANS explored underlying biological mechanisms of action of yoga which is found to optimizes functions of the autonomic nervous system.

Yet another was a PhD dissertation by Dr. Aditi Devi under Professor Shivarama Varambally, head, Department of Integrative Medicine showed that patients with mild moderate depression improved with yoga as a sole therapy, said Dr Gangadhar.

According to Dr. Kishore Kumar R, Professor of Ayurveda, department of Integrative Medicine, NIMHANS, the ‘One Physician’ concept who can treat with best of all systems of medicine is the way forward to bolster Indian healthcare services. There is a need for a combination therapy to treat, control and cure the modern illnesses related to neurology and mental health.

The Union government granted Rs. 10 crore for a Centre of Excellence for the neurobiological markers and we have a huge repository of neuro imaging too. There are also research papers published in peer reviews on our findings using Ayurveda and Yoga, added Dr Kumar.

The department of Integrative Medicine received a total grant of Rs. 14.5 crore for many ongoing advanced research efforts to evaluate effects of integrative approaches of Ayurveda and Yoga with modern scientific parameters on opioid dependence, perinatal depression, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s under the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance funding, stated Dr Hemant Bhargav who is a MBBS graduate with a MD and PhD in yoga works as Assistant Professor of Yoga in the Department of Integrative Medicine.

Dr. Bharath Holla, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry, NIMHANS who holds a Post-Doctoral Clinical Fellow in Addiction Medicine noted that a validated yoga module for acute withdrawal phase and maintenance phase in patients with opioid use disorders was totally beneficial.

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