European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

EFFICACY OF YOGA & NATUROPATHIC INTERVENTION VERSUS CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL MANAGEMENT ON QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG ALCOHOL DEPENDENT INDIVIDUALS – A PILOT STUDY

Vama Jain, Prashanth Shetty, Shashikiran H. C.* and Shivaprasad 

ABSTRACT

Background: Yoga is a mind-body therapy that connects the body, breath, and mind to energize and balance an individual as a whole. Yoga today has become a therapy to rehabilitate and treat addiction. Naturopathic treatments detoxify and rejuvenate the body. It also deals with health promotion, disease prevention, and curative as well as restorative aspects of an individual. The conventional mode of treatment which is basically allopathic medicine, also have been given as a treatment for physical and psychological health problems. Materials and methods: A total of 60 alcohol dependent subjects divided into 2 groups, viz. group A and group B within the age of 23 to 65 years were taken for the study. Subjects who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion and screening criteria of the subjects Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) questionnaire have been used. The group A was given yoga and naturopathic management, whereas the group B was given conventional medical management for a period of 7 days. The assessments were done before and after the intervention. Both groups were assessed for withdrawal symptoms and quality of life on day one and day seven. Results: There is a significant change in between the yoga and naturopathy treatment group (p<0.05) than that of the conventional management group. Conclusion: The present study concludes that yoga and naturopathic management enables to reduce regularly symptoms of alcohol dependent individuals better than a conventional medical approach.

Keywords: Alcohol dependent individuals, Alcoholism, Yoga, Naturopathy, Conventional medicine, Withdrawal symptoms, Quality of life.