A human touch in cancer treatment: the Lukas Klinik embraces a philosophy of cancer treatment that nurtures the spirit while providing conventional medical treatment. Swiss News takes you inside the 46-bed hospital in Arlesheim, Switzerland.

Located in a tranquil village near the heart of Basel's thriving pharmaceutical industry, the Lukas Klinik is a small island of people-oriented cancer treatment in an ocean of conventional medical institutions.

Its physicians are trained medical doctors who are also steeped in what's known as 'anthroposophy'--literally, awareness of humanity. They provide what they call 'complementary' tumor therapy, complementing conventional treatments such as surgery and chemotherapy by taking into account the physical body, life forces, the soul and the spirit.

In an interview with Swiss News, Dr. med. Peter Heusser, a leading physician at the clinic and Professor of Medicine at the University of Bern, sheds light on what it means to be an anthroposophical medical doctor.

Swiss News: What does is mean to be an anthroposophical physician?

Dr. Heusser: It means that we have an extended knowledge of the human being. In conventional medicine, the focus tends to be on the physical aspect of the human being. In anthroposophy, non-physical aspects are much more evolved.

Anthroposophical doctors are not 'healers,' we have all gone through conventional university medical programmes and post docs, Anthroposophic medicine is not alternative medicine: it complements conventional treatment.

How does anthroposophy give doctors an extended view of the human being?

Anthroposophy discerns four levels in the human being: the laws and forces of the physical, the laws and forces of the living, the soul (the carrier of emotions) and the spirit. We know that these four levels are integrated and we use knowledge of all of them for diagnoses and treatment.

When we take a patient's case history, we ask more questions than usual. We want to "know how patients have gone through other diseases in a more detailed way than usual. We try to determine the patient's emotional and spiritual wellbeing and how this interacts with physical or life processes in the body.

How is this extended view used in therapy?

Anthroposophic therapies are used to engender the body's own life processes such as vitality, strength and harmonisation of organic processes, but also self-regulation and sell:healing at the levels of soul and spirit.

Anthroposophy is not only oriented toward the physical, it is also oriented towards the higher levels of human existence, hence the term 'anthroposophy': anthropos = the human being, sophia = wisdom or science.

What sort of therapies are offered and why?

We offer physiotherapy (acting on the physical body), curative eurythmy (movement acting on inner life processes), and various forms of art therapy including painting, music and modeling. speech therapy and biography work.

Art therapies work via the soul: If you paint, if you live in the color, you will have certain feelings that differ according to the colors. Colors have an effect on your soul and from your soul on your life processes. Another example is speech therapy: if you recite a poem, you become emotionally involved. We can show that if you recite hexameters it has a coordinating effect on the rhythms of the heart and respiration and on other bodily rhythms and it helps to coordinate these rhythms. This has recently been published in the American Journal of Physiology.

Doctor/patient discussions help patients to think about and verbalise their problems, questions and spiritual needs. This work involves the cognitive and spiritual level and helps patients in their struggle to cope meaningfully with their disease.

What is Iscador, how is it used?

Iscador is fermented mistletoe extract, It is an herbal medication that we have been administering to our patients as part of our integrated therapy approach tot many years. We use sophisticated laboratory techniques to monitor its immunological effects.

One of the interesting effects of mistletoe therapy is on patients who take it in combination with chemotherapy. It improves their tolerance of chemotherapy and helps to reduce its side effects. Iscador has also been observed to improve the patient's general wellbeing, to inhibit rumor growth, to reduce pain caused by tumors, to improve the patient's appetite and to generally improve the patient's quality of life.

How effective are these therapies?

The effect of these therapies depends on the stage of the disease. There are clearly curable and incurable stages. Even in palliative stages where the disease is progressed and there is no hope for a cure, we can show that our integrated therapy concept has a significant effect on the patient's quality of life.

We performed a quality of life study with the ontology department of the University of Bern within the auspices of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The results are being published now. We were able to show that on the physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and social levels, patients showed significant improvement in quality of life with an average three-week stay at the Lukas Klinik. And, they also required fewer conventional painkillers because their average level of pain decreased.

Such findings are especially important nowadays. Though there are always small steps of progress in the search for a cure for cancer, in 80 per cent of advanced cancers, little progress has been made in the last 20 or 30 years. So, the medical focus has shifted more towards improvement of quality of life and this study shows that our therapy concept works.

Is the food served at the Lukas Klinik special?

Yes, the food we serve is ovolacto-vegetarian. We use biodynamically and organically produced fresh ingredients. The food is always freshly prepared: it is not cooked in advance.

We serve our patients a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Twenty years ago conventional oncologists laughed a us hut now it is what is recommended. What we do is also done in many other places but our kitchen does have a very special quality.

What drew you to anthroposophy?

I completed my conventional university training but always had the impression that something was missing. When I came from premedical training into medical relining and started coming into contact with patients at the university hospital, I had the impression that I was working in an industrial plant. I missed the more human aspects of medicine without really knowing it. So after graduation, I looked tot other possibilities and came across anthroposophic medicine.

Anthroposophists spend more time with each patient than conventional doctors. We look at the human being as a living being with a soul and a spirit, not only as a machine.

Anthroposophists seem to caw more about the total wellbeing of their patients and this is important. We can scientifically show that the isolation of the action of drugs is very theoretical. It has been shown with placebo control studies that placebo effects as well as the effect of real drugs change according to the context in which they are administered.

We are convinced that it is necessary to study the effect of a whole package of therapy and not only the isolated effects of drags in randomised control trials. It is essential in order to understand the tree effect of a drug on the patients. Methodologically, we need more humanly-adapted research and that is what we are working toward.

The Lukas Klinik is a medium sized hospital with 46 beds. Patients can be treated on both an inpatient and an outpatient basis. For more information, contact:

Lukas Klinik

Brachmattstrasse 19

4144 Arlesheim

tel: [phone]

www.lukasklinik.ch

RUDOLF STEINER 

Rudolf Steiner is the founder of anthroposophy. He is known today as a philosopher but he was also a prolific writer and lecturer, with 350 volumes of collected works including 40 books and over 6000 published lectures.

Steiner was born in 1861 in Austria and died in 1925 in Dornach, Switzerland. He was the son of a Southern Austrian Railway official and grew up in small villages in Southern Austria. As a young adult he lived in Vienna and earned university degrees in mathematics, physics and chemistry. He harboured a keen interest in literature, architecture and the arts, but was also attracted to questions of mysticism and whether there is a modern, scientific approach to higher knowledge.

In the early 1900s, Steiner became involved with the Theosophical Society, which embraced a belief in the unity of spirit and matter, reincarnation and spiritual evolution (from www.natcath.com). After ten years, the society separated itself from Steiner due to a divergence in belief about the nature of Christ. In 1912 Steiner founded his own, more human-oriented and Christ-centred philosophy which he called anthroposophy.

ANTHROPOSOPHY

In Rudolf Steiner's words, "anthroposophy is a path of knowledge that aims to guide the spiritual element in the human being to the spiritual in the universe." He once said it should be understood to mean "awareness of ones humanity."

The anthroposophical movement has been growing since its inception. Its effects can be felt throughout the world in many professions including medicine, education, agriculture, spirituality, mathematics, astronomy, theology, philosophy, drama and economics.

The Goetheanum, a beautiful and unique building designed by Rudolf Steiner, is the centre of the worldwide Anthroposophical Society. It is located in Dornach, close to the Lukas Klinik, Many anthroposophical performances, conferences and symposiums are held there and it is also open to the public.