Durango Acupuncture Alliance is looking for mental-health professionals who want certification in a single aspect of acupuncture in order to treat military veterans for stress disorders.
“It’s an extension of our work that started in 2012 to treat veterans who suffer stress and post-traumatic stress syndrome,” Danielle Hennes, a member of the alliance, said. “More people certified in National Acupuncture Detoxification Association protocol are needed to help veterans to cope with these problems.”
Alliance members give free acupuncture to veterans Monday and Thursday at their clinic. The service started on a once-a-week schedule in October 2012.
A three-day workshop in April will prepare newcomers to perform a single acupuncture treatment – the placement of five needles in specific locations in the ear. A NADA trainer will lead the workshop in April, with Hennes assisting.
The Colorado Legislature in 2011 authorized certain professionals to perform the treatment, called auricular acudetox, but restricted who can be certified.
Authorization became effective July 1, 2013.
Training is limited to registered nurses, physicians. acupuncturists and professionals licensed in social work, psychology, marriage and family counseling and addiction treatment.
The treatment must be performed under the professional’s current scope of practice, and the professional may not call himself or herself an acupuncturist or claim to perform acupuncture beyond the authorized scope.
Sydney Cooley, one of the first alliance members to treat veterans, said an expanded cadre of certified experts promises to a be great service to the community.
Cooley said if qualified mental-health providers at Axis Health System’s new federally funded clinic and Mercy Regional Medical Center become certified, first-responders as well as their patients can receive five-needle acupuncture.
“Health-care workers such as first-responders and emergency room personnel burn out and get stressed too,” Cooley said. “If they can be treated by colleagues, it frees us (alliance members) to offer veterans full-body acupuncture for shoulder, lower back and neck pain.”
The five-needle treatment was developed at the Lincoln Recovery Center in the South Bronx in New York City as treatment for addiction. Research showed it could be effective in cases in which relaxation and/or detoxification was required.
Post-traumatic stress disorder fit that description. Since then, the treatment has been used in 1,500 clinics in the United States and overseas for addiction, trauma and stress disorders.
Durango Acupuncture Alliance, which has nine members, began offering acupuncture in October 2012. About 1,000 veterans have availed themselves of the free service since.
Hennes said veterans report less stress, improved sleep and less anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and headaches.
Alliance volunteers are licensed and certified by their own practices. Besides Hennes and Cooley, they are Vanessa Morgan, Julie Gwyther, Carla Mae Toth, Claudia Bleth, David Konikowski, Christl Giggenbach and Caleb Gates.
The alliance modeled itself after Acupuncturists Without Borders, an Albuquerque organization that has aided stressed victims of hurricanes, fires and earthquakes.
daler@durangoherald.com
