Treatment of hyperactive children: increased efficiency through modifications of homeopathic diagnostic procedure.
BACKGROUND
The rigorous test to which homeopathy was subject in our recent double-blind clinical trail of homeopathic treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) necessitated optimized treatment meeting the highest standards.


METHODS
Optimization was performed in three steps: (1) In successfully treated children, prescriptions leading to an insufficient response were analysed by a general questionnaire to identify unreliable symptoms. (2) Polarity analysis, a further development of Bönninghausen's concept of contraindications, was introduced in response to the frequently one-sided symptoms. This enabled us to use few but specific symptoms to identify the medicine whose genius symptoms exhibit the closest match to the patient's characteristic symptoms. (3) We investigated the influence of the primary perception symptoms on the result of the repertorization. Perception symptoms are not normally recorded during a patient interview even though they are among the most reliable facts related by the patients. At the same time we were able to improve the continuity of improvement of ADHD symptoms using liquid Q-potencies.


RESULTS
Introducing the questionnaire, polarity analysis, and including perception symptoms, lead to an improvement in the success rate of the first prescription from 21% to 54%, of the fifth prescription from 68% to 84%.
Frei
H
H
Swiss Association of Homeopathic Physicians, Lucerne, Switzerland. heiner.frei@hin.ch
von Ammon
K
K
Thurneysen
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006705:Homeopathy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008419:Materia Medica / Q000627:therapeutic use; D010465:Perception; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D012803:Sick Role; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D008419:Materia Medica