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About Ayurveda

Ayurveda Treatment

Ayurveda & Yoga

The aim of Ayurvedic medicine is to integrate and balance the body, mind, and spirit. This is believed to help prevent illness and promote wellness. Ayurvedic medicine uses a variety of products and techniques to cleanse the body and restore balance.

Treatment: Ayurvedic treatment is tailored to each person’s constitution. Practitioners expect patients to be active participants because many Ayurvedic treatments require changes in diet, lifestyle, and habits. The patient’s dosha balance. Ayurvedic practitioners first determine the patient’s primary dosha and the balance among the three doshas by:
- Asking about diet, behavior, lifestyle practices, recent illnesses (including reasons and symptoms), and resilience (ability to recover quickly from illness or setbacks) ? Observing such physical characteristics as teeth and tongue, skin, eyes, weight, and overall appearance ? Checking the patient’s urine, stool, speech and voice, and pulse (each dosha is thought to make a particular kind of pulse).
- Treatment practices. Ayurvedic treatment goals include eliminating impurities, reducing symptoms, increasing resistance to disease, and reducing worry and increasing harmony in the patient’s life. The practitioner uses a variety of methods to achieve these goals:
- Eliminating impurities. A process called panchakarma is intended to cleanse the body by eliminating ama. Ama is described as an undigested food that sticks to tissues, interferes with normal functioning of the body, and leads to disease. Panchakarma focuses on eliminating ama through the digestive tract and the respiratory system. Enemas, massage, medical oils administered in a nasal spray, and other methods may be used.
- Reducing symptoms. The practitioner may suggest various options, including physical exercises, stretching, breathing exercises, meditation, massage, lying in the sun, and changing the diet. The patient may take certain herbs—often with honey, to make them easier to digest. Sometimes diets are restricted to certain foods. Very small amounts of metal and mineral preparations, such as gold or iron, also may be given.
- Increasing resistance to disease. The practitioner may combine several herbs, proteins, minerals, and vitamins in tonics to improve digestion and increase appetite and immunity. These tonics are based on formulas from ancient texts.
- Reducing worry and increasing harmony. Ayurvedic medicine emphasizes mental nurturing and spiritual healing. Practitioners may recommend avoiding situations that cause worry and using techniques that promote release of negative emotions.
The basic therapeutic approach is, ‘that alone is the right treatment which makes for health and he alone is the best doctor who frees one from disease’. This sums up the principal objectives of Ayurveda, i.e. maintenance and promotion of health, prevention of disease and cure of sickness.

Treatment of the disease consists in avoiding causative factors responsible for disequilibrium of the body matrix or of any of its constituent parts through the use of Panchkarma procedures, medicines, suitable diet, activity and regimen for restoring the balance and strengthening the body mechanisms to prevent or minimize future occurrence of the disease.

Normally treatment measures involve use of medicines, specific diet and prescribed activity routine. Use of these three measures is done in two ways. In one approach of treatment the three measures antagonize the disease by counteracting the etiological factors and various manifestations of the disease. In the second approach the same three measures of medicine, diet and activity are targeted to exert effects similar to the etiological factors and manifestations of the disease process. These two types of therapeutic approaches are respectively known as Vipreeta and Vipreetarthkari treatments.

Diet and Ayurvedic Treatment In Ayurveda, regulation of diet as therapy has great importance. This is because it considers human body as the product of food. An individual’s mental and spiritual development as well as his temperament is influenced by the quality of food consumed by him. Food in human body is transformed first into chyle or Rasa and then successive processes involve its conversion into blood, muscle, fat, bone, bone-marrow, reproductive elements and ojas. Thus, food is basic to all the metabolic transformations and life activities. Lack of nutrients in food or improper transformation of food lead to a variety of disease conditions. For successful administration of a treatment four things are essential. These are:

The physician
The medicaments
The nursing personnel
The patient

The physician comes first in order of importance. He must possess technical skill, scientific knowledge, purity and human understanding. The physician should use his knowledge with humility, wisdom and in the service of humanity. Next in importance comes food and drugs. These are supposed to be of high quality, wide application, grown and prepared following approved procedures and should be available adequately. The third component of every successful treatment is the role of nursing personnel who should have good knowledge of nursing, must know the skills of their art and be affectionate, sympathetic, intelligent, neat & clean and resourceful. The fourth component is the patient himself who should be cooperative and obedient to follow instructions of the physician, able to describe ailments and ready to provide all that may be needed for treatment.

Preventive Treatment & the concepts of Aetio-Pathogenesis
Ayurveda has developed a very vivid analytical description of the stages and events that take place since the causative factors commence to operate till the final manifestation of disease. This gives this system an additional advantage of knowing that possible onset of disease much before the latent symptoms become apparent. This very much enhances the preventive role of this system of medicine by making it possible to take proper and effective steps in advance, to arrest further progress in pathogenesis or to take suitable therapeutic measures to curb the disease in its earliest stage of onset.

Types of Treatment: The treatment of disease can broadly be classified as:

Shodhana therapy (Purification Treatment)
Shamana therapy (Palliative Treatment)
Pathya Vyavastha (Prescription of diet and activity)
Nidan Parivarjan (Avoidance of disease causing and aggravating factors)
Satvavajaya(Psychotherapy)

Rasayana therapy(use of immunomodulators and rejuvenation medicines)

(a) Shodhana treatment aims at removal of the causative factors of somatic and psychosomatic diseases. The process involves internal and external purification. The usual practices involved are Panchkarma (medically induced Emesis, Purgation, Oil Enema, Decoction enema and Nasal administration of medicines), Pre-panchkarma procedures (external and internal oleation and induced sweating). Panchkarma treatment focuses on metabolic management. It provides needed purificatory effect, besides conferring therapeutic benefits. This treatment is especially helpful in neurological disorders, musculo-skeletal disease conditions, certain vascular or neuro-vascular states, respiratory diseases, metabolic and degenerative disorders.

(b) Shamana therapy involves suppression of vitiated humours (doshas). The process by which disturbed humour subsides or returns to normal without creating imbalance of other humours is known as shamana. This treatment is achieved by use of appetisers, digestives, exercise and exposure to sun, fresh air etc. In this form of treatment, palliatives and sedatives are used.

(c) Pathya Vyavastha comprises indications and contraindications in respect of diet, activity, habits and emotional status. This is done with a view to enhance the effects of therapeutic measures and to impede the pathogenetic processes. Emphasis on do’s and don’ts of diet etc is laid with the aim to stimulate Agni and optimize digestion and assimilation of food in order to ensure strength of tissues.

(d) Nidan Parivarjan is to avoid the known disease causing factors in diet and lifestyle of the patient. It also encompasses the idea to refrain from precipitating or aggravating factors of the disease.

(e) Satvavajaya concerns mainly with the area of mental disturbances. This includes restraining the mind from desires for unwholesome objects and cultivation of courage, memory and concentration. The study of psychology and psychiatry have been developed extensively in Ayurveda and have wide range of approaches in the treatment of mental disorders.

(f) Rasayana therapy deals with promotion of strength and vitality. The integrity of body matrix, promotion of memory, intelligence, immunity against the disease, the preservation of youth, luster and complexion and maintenance of optimum strength of the body and senses are some of the positive benefits credited to this treatment. Prevention of premature bear and tear of body tissues and promotion of total health content of an individual are the roles that Rasayana therapy plays.

Specialized Procedures in Ayurveda

Ayurveda emphasizes preventative and healing therapies along with various methods of bio-cleansing and rejuvenation. Some procedures are aimed at the management of the disease. Scientific studies have validated the efficacy and acceptability of these procedures.

Panchakarma - Panchakarma means the "five therapies"/five therapeutic means of eliminating toxins from the body are Vaman (emesis), Virechan (purgation), Nasya (nasal insufflation), Basti (enema) and Raktamoskshana (blood-letting by using leech and different instruments). This series of five therapies help remove deep-rooted stress and illness causing toxins from the body while balancing the doshas (energies that govern all biological functions).

Kshara Sautra- A procedure using medicated thread is a unique minimally invasive para-surgical measure being successfully practiced as a promising therapy for ano-rectal disorders since time immortal by Indian surgeons, widely cited in ancient medical literatures for its safety and efficacy. This technique was practiced by Sushruta (1000-600 B.C.), the famed ancient Indian surgeon. This technique was revived, developed and standardized in the early seventies by eminent scientists like Prof.P.J.Deshpande, Dr.P.S.Shankaran (Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi ).

Rasayana- Literally, rasayana means the augmentation of rasa, the vital fluid produced by the digestion of food. It is the rasa flowing in the body that sustains life. Rasayana in ayurveda is the method of treatment through which the rasa is maintained in the body. This is a specialized branch of clinical medicine meant for preventing the effect of ageing and to improve memory, intelligence, complexion, sensory and motor functions. Numerous rasayana medicines are reported to possess diversified actions like immuno-enhancement, free radical scavenging, adaptogenic or anti-stress and nutritive effects.

Panchakarma

Panchakarma is a unique bio-cleansing regimen of Ayurveda comprising of five procedures that facilitates better bioavailability of the pharmacological therapies, helps to bring about homeostasis of body humours, eliminates disease-causing toxic complexes from the body. When applied skilfully and appropriately, Panchakarma procedures are safe and effective for the prevention and management of a number of health problems.
In the current scenario, these unique procedures are widely practiced by physicians in India and many other countries globally for prophylactic and therapeutic purposes besides improving the quality of life of subjects suffering from chronic and refractory illness.
With the global propagation of Ayurveda, safety and efficacy of medicines and procedure-based therapies viz. Panchakarma have become important concerns. It is high time to frame an ideal guidelines based on classics and practices to propagate safe Panchakarma practices.
Recognizing the global need, the Central Council for Research in Ayurveda & Siddha, Department of AYUSH have drafted the guidelines for Basic Training and Safety in Panchakarma. The guidelines have been thoroughly reviewed and finalized in a national workshop inviting subject experts and incorporating their suggestions.
These guidelines cover the basic information on Panchakarma, Types of providers of Panchakarma, administrative, academic considerations, examining & licensing, levels of training in Panchakarma, core syllabus, guidelines of safety of Panchakarma. The annexure on programme structure and recommended teaching hours, glossary of technical terms will help the countries and institutions who wish to impart a comprehensive basic training in Panchakarma.
These unique guidelines will immensely help the scientists, academicians, practitioners, research scholars and students for sustainable utilization of merits of Panchakarma and catering better health care services in India and globally as well.