Eczema also known as dermatitis is an inflammatory condition that affects the skin. The areas affected can be weeping or have sores. The common symptoms are the skin being itchy, red, cracked and dry. At times it results to small bleedings in the affected area. The condition usually reoccurs after some times and is very distressing especially for the young children. There are a number of different forms of eczema. Childhood eczema is allergic based and may start during infancy. In some cases it is associated with asthma and hayfever. Eczema sometimes affects the face and causes creases at the elbow and the back of the knees to some of the patients. Although childhood eczema tends to clear as a child grows, it sometimes continues to adulthood.
In the developed countries 20% of the children and 2% of the adults are affected with eczema (Schwartz, 2017). This shows that the children are the most affected. So far there are no clear racial predilections identified about eczema. Both the males and the females are affected equally. The age of the occurrence does no matter but it often starts on children aged between two to six months. There are no specific trend for the global trend of eczema in both children and adults (Deckers et al., 2003). The large number of cases presented for eczema is of the children of five years. At the age of fourteen years, improvements are noticed in the affected children. The society is burdened with treatment that is time consuming especially when it affects the children. The financial effect of eczema to the society is great. The costs that are incurred include prescription costs, physician visit costs, and emergency and hospital costs. This needs to be part of wellness because it will help in the reduction of the financial costs of the society. This may be looking at the diet that one takes and the lifestyles that cause eczema.
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The significance of the wellness issue of eczema to healthcare includes seeking medical interventions. The medics will be able to diagnose eczema by looking at the skin of the affected person or asking some questions (Alikhan et al., 2014). Some of the questions that may be asked are where the rash has appeared and if it is itchy, when the symptoms began and if the rash comes and goes over time and whether there are other conditions that the patient suffers from like asthma or allergies. For a person to be diagnosed with eczema, he or she should have an itchy skin condition for a period of time. The irritated red skin should be visible in the skin that has creases. The person should at least have a history of skin irritation that has occurred in the same areas over a given time and the skin being dry. The wellness of eczema to healthcare also involves treatment in order to control the symptoms. This treatment involves self-care techniques, moisturizing treatments or the use of topical corticosteroids.
Alternative therapies for eczema are the treatments that are used for treating eczema and there is no enough evidence that they should be recommended. Most of these therapies have not been tested sufficiently. However there are some therapies that have shown the evidence that they can treat eczema. Hypnosis is one of them that in stress reduction and dealing with the behavioral components of eczema. Accupuncture is another therapy that has showed evidence of modulating the pain and the itchiness. Traditional Chinese herbs have proved that they can be used in the treatment of eczema and the use of natural therapies like sunflower seed oil and coconut oil. There are many studies that have been carried out before on examining the effectiveness of complementary and alternatives on eczema including the use of therapies. The therapies include natural and herbal products, mind-body therapies and also food supplements. There are recent research studies that have been carried out on the issue of contemporary and alternative medicine treatment of eczema.
Landis, Davis, Feldman & Taylor (2014) carried out a research on the increasing presence of complementary and alternative medicine in dermatology. The research was titled “Complementary and Alternative Medicine use in Dermatology in the United States”. The study focused on assess to oral complementary and alternative medicines. The factors that were used to choose the population to be used in the study were diagnoses of the patients, the demographic characteristics of the patients and the complementary and alternative medicine visits that were documented. The findings showed that the common supplementary supplements that were used included fish oil, omega-3 and glucosamine. This shows that complementary and alternative medicines are used largely in medicine for the treatment of eczema.
Another study was carried out by Vieira, Lim and Lohman (2016)). The research was titled “Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Atopic Dermatitis: An Evidence-Based Review”. The research was carried out because of the increasing uses of complementary and alternative interventions in the treatment of atopic dermatitis. The purpose of the research was to offer a review of the randomized controlled trails of the therapies used in Atopic Dermatitis which are complementary and alternative. The methods that were used were taking the researches from the database of Pudmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and GREAT (Global Resource for EczemA Trial). The sample size that was taken from each of the data base was ten or more than ten. The findings showed that there was the use of complementary and alternative medicines in the treatment of Atopic Dermatitis. This was by the use of acupuncture and acupressure which are stress reducing techniques like massage and hypnosis. There were also the use of herbal preparations, botanical oils and vitamin D supplementation. The findings of this research from all the databases that was used showed that the therapies which were offered for Atopic Dermatitis are the complementary and alternative treatments of Atopic Dermatitis.
The last research was carried out by Jadotte et al., (2014) on complementary and alternative medicine treatments for Atopic Dermatitis. The research was carried out to assess the effects of complementary and alternative medicine treatments for atopic eczema. The research concentrated on randomized controlled trials. These included clusters and randomized trials. The participants varied differently on the age, ethnicity and gender. The complementary and alternative treatment of atopic dermatitis that were used included acupuncture, aromatherapy, bath therapy, bioresonance, chromotherapy, homeotherapy, massage therapy, phytotherapy and relaxation techniques. The studies evaluated complementary and alternative treatments apart from the ones listed for people with atopic dermatitis. The findings showed that there are global improvements for the use of complementary and alternative treatments for atopic dermatitis.
The three studies used in this paper shows that there are a number of complementary and alternative treatments that are used in dealing with eczema. Some of the treatments used are proven scientifically while others are not. Having a variety of treatment methods for eczema gives the patients a continued hope of their decease being cured. The findings of the studies show that complementary and alternative treatments for eczema can be used in the clinics. This shows that complementary and alternative treatment for eczema has been growing over the years because they are the additional treatments that are used with the convention medication. This is despite the availability of a variety of conventional therapy. Complementary and alternative medication for eczema is mostly natural. However, there not being enough evidence of the efficiency of complementary and alternative medications of eczema, more research needs to be done on this.
- Alikhan, A., Lachapelle, J. & Maibach, H. (2014). Textbook of Hand Eczema. Springer.
- Deckers IA, McLean S, Linssen S, Mommers M, van Schayck CP, Sheikh A. Investigating International Time Trends in the Incidence and Prevalence of Atopic Eczema 1990–2010: A Systematic Review of Epidemiological Studies.
- Jadotte YT, Santer M, Vakirlis E, Schwartz RA, Bauer A, Gundersen DA, Mossman K, Lewith G. Complementary and alternative medicine treatments for atopic eczema (Protocol). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD010938. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD010938
- Landis, E., Davis, S., Feldman, S., & Taylor, S. (2014). Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in Dermatology in the United States. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 20(5), 392-398. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/acm.2013.0327
- Schwartz, R. (2017). Pediatric Atopic Dermatitis: Background, Pathophysiology, Epidemiology. Emedicine.medscape.com. Retrieved 30 June 2017, from http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/911574-overview#a6
- Vieira, B., Lim, N., & Lio, P. (2016). Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Atopic Dermatitis: An Evidence-Based Review. Pubmed, 17(6), 557-581. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40257-016-0209-1