Integrative Health Services

What is Integrative Health?

Integrative health combines alternative medicine with traditional medicine. It treats the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. Integrative health focuses on wellness and health and acknowledges a person’s lifestyle as well as their environment. It emphasizes a strong patient-provider relationship.

Atlantic General Hospital’s Integrative Health Program allows for a more personalized experience for the patient. You can have a more active role in your care by being able to choose which services you want.

For more information, call (410) 629-6520.

Is integrative health care right for me?

On-Site Services For our inpatients: Warm blankets, aroma/essential oil therapy, animal-assisted therapy, healing music, and relaxation tv channel

Partner Services
Our preferred providers have had their references and credentials reviewed by a multidisciplinary team within the Integrative Health Services program at Atlantic General Hospital.

Click here for the list of current preferred providers.

Therapies Defined
Acupuncture: Insertion of extremely thin needles through skin at strategic points to balance oxygen and blood believed to flow through pathways (meridians) in the body. Benefits include increased blood flow, reduced pain, improved digestion and reduced nausea after surgery.

Animal Assisted Therapy: Therapy that involves animals in order to improve a patient’s social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. Benefits include lower stress and blood pressure, and better social function and impulse control.

Aroma Therapy: The practice of using the natural oils extracted from flowers, bark, stems, leaves, roots or other parts of a plant to enhance psychological and physical well-being. It is used for a variety of applications, including pain relief, mood enhancement and increased cognitive function.

Massage: Application of soft tissue manipulation techniques to the body, generally intended to reduce stress and fatigue and improve circulation. Benefits also include improved sleep and pain management.

Music Therapy: the use of music and musical elements to promote, maintain, and restore mental, physical, and spiritual health.

Meditation/Guided Imagery: A practice where an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness by a number of techniques designed to promote relaxation. Benefits include decreased stress, improved digestion, lowered blood pressure and decreased anxiety.

Neuro-/Biofeedback: Neurofeedback targets improved regulation of brain regions or functions. Biofeedback trains individuals to control physiologic functions (ordinarily unconscious), by measuring and providing immediate feedback. Both are used for optimum performance and for improved mood, attention, sleep, and cognitive function.

Nutrition Counseling: Review of diet and nutrition status and recommendations for changes to be made, understanding the role of diet and nutrition in overall health. Benefits include increased education and awareness of nutrition, and healthier lifestyle choices.

Reflexology: Application of pressure to hands, feet, and head based on the theory that reflex points on these areas are linked to every part of the body. Benefits include anxiety and pain reduction, nerve stimulation, and increased energy and circulation.

Reiki: A healing technique based on the principle that the therapist can channel energy into and out of the patient by means of touch. Benefits include decreased anxiety, improved sleep, decreased pain, and increased mobility and self-perception.

Sound Therapy: An ancient healing modality using musical vibrational instruments such as crystal and Himalayan Bowl, drums, bells and voice. Benefits include deep relaxation, reduction of chronic pain and inflammation, and can lower blood pressure and heart rate.

Tai Chi: A martial art form of meditative exercise also known as “meditation in motion” characterized by slow circular and stretching movements and positions of bodily balance. Benefits include increased strength, flexibility, and balance, and decreased pain and anxiety.

Yoga: Physical, spiritual, and mental practice now used as an exercise and physical therapy routine. Benefits include reduced stress and back pain, increased flexibility, improved mood, and lower blood pressure and fatigue.

Heal Faster Program

Atlantic General Hospital offers our Heal Faster Workshop free of charge for patients going through treatment or preparing for an upcoming surgery. For more information click here, or call (410) 629-6520

Is Integrative Health Care Right for Me?

Do you have any of the following conditions: allergies, addiction, arthritis, asthma, pain, stress or anxiety, headaches, fatigue, or depression?
Do you want a more individualized treatment plan that is specific to your wants and needs?If you answered yes to either of these questions, Integrative Health services may be right for you. Our Integrative Health services are available to anyone!

For more information, call (410) 629-6520.