Recently, I discovered a wonderful book by Oliver James called” Contented Dementia”, which I wished I had read a lot earlier. It describes the story of Penny Garner, a British housewife, who had a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. From trial and error, she discovered a new form of communication which was successful in alleviating her mother’s feelings of anxiety, and she was able to keep her reasonably happy until the end.

Using her personal experience, she became involved with elderly patients at her local community hospital where she encouraged them to relive their old memories, and to create an imaginary world where their past became the foundation for a new reality.

According to one of the principles of this ancient medical framework, each of the main organs in our body is associated with a specific emotion. By treating the specific organ which is affected, we can harmonize a person’s emotional state. In a similar fashion, the treatment of the person’s emotional state will in turn improve the function of its related organ.

It is only recently that Western medicine has started to acknowledge the importance of emotions in our general health. Unfortunately, over a long period this abnormal pattern, not only weakens our immune system but produces deep changes in the body’s internal structure leading to serious disease in the future.

The connection between emotions and organs is especially strong in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In that medical framework, specific emotions have a negative effect on specific organs. Anger affects the liver, worry or overthinking affects the spleen, fear affects the kidney and sadness, and grief affects the lungs.

With the right diagnosis, lifestyle modifications, and appropriate treatments, the results can be very effective. Many women, who had previously been told that they had no chance of achieving a normal birth, often get delighted when they are able to regain their health and have a successful pregnancy after a few months of regular herbal and acupuncture treatments.

Due to its proximity to the central nervous system, this small section of the head can be seen as a microcosm of the whole body. While conventional body acupuncture uses some channel points located on the top of the head, cranial acupuncture follows a different approach outside the meridian relationship.

The Eastern approach to treating impotence is longer lasting without the side effects of modern drug therapy, says Olivier Lejus.