Keywords
Cancer
Quality of life
herbal medicinal smoke
How to Cite
Abstract
Abstract. Cancer is becoming leading cause of death around the world. India has limited infrastructure and facility to fight the disease. In addition, side effects of current standard therapies like chemotherapy and radiation therapy severely hamper the quality of life (QOL) of patients. Alternative supportive therapies are a dire need, not only to reduce current therapeutic burden, but also to reduce the side effects, and deteriorating QOL of cancer patients. Yagya Therapy is an ancient Vedic therapeutic model, which allows pulmonary inhalation of medeicinal-smoke of multi-herbs combination, generated through its oblation in fire, along with the chanting of mantras. The study attempted to evaluate QOL of life of three cancer patients (breast cancer, mouth cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia), who were prescribed to inhale medicinal-smoke generated using specifically prepared multi-herbs combination as part of Yagya Therapy by Center for Ayurveda Studies at Dev Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya. Patients continued their normal regime of allopathic treatment and used Yagya Therapy as supportive care. They were assessed for QOL using self-prepared 10-scale questionnaire. All three patients reported improvement in their QOL after taking Yagya Therapy for 12, 7 and 2 months, respectively. Averages of % improvement in all available individual conditions on 10-scale questionnaire, including physical and psychological complaints were 75%, 41.67%, and 40%, respectively. The study indicated the potential of Yagya Therapy using specific multi-herbs herbal preparation as supportive care for improving QOL of cancer patients taking standard allopathic treatments.
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