Welcome to the Practice of Anthroposophic Medicine!

Last update: 30.08.2019

Here you will find interdisciplinary best practice recommendations for dealing with challenging therapeutic issues, ranging from pregnancy and childbirth to palliative medicine.

The aim is to provide you with quick, simple, concrete suggestions for treating patients, young and old, and to enable you to gain a deeper understanding of the relevant topics as they relate to an anthroposophic understanding of the human being.

The focus is on five subject areas that are being constantly updated and expanded (see The CARE Process). These topics were chosen, firstly, because they frequently raise challenging medical, ethical, pedagogical, psychological and/or spiritual questions and, secondly, because Anthroposophic Medicine has essential contributions to make in these areas:

  • What does meaningful and effective health promotion in pregnancy and early childhood look like in family, educational and medical environments, so that small children can develop in the best possible way according to their physical, mental and spiritual abilities and needs?

  • How can acute and recurrent infections be treated sensibly against the background of increasing antibiotic resistance? What can be done with medication and support to guide the patient’s inflammatory response and thereby strengthen his or her immunological competence?

  • How can a multidisciplinary concept for treatment respond to the epidemically increasing prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders – which are partly due to the steadily increasing number of traumatized patients associated with the world’s trouble spots – so that patients can be physically, mentally and spiritually stabilized and thereby helped to find a way forward?  

  • In every stage of cancer, a variety of therapy or disease associated symptoms can occur, such as cancer fatigue and chemotherapy side effects, which can be effectively improved with anthroposophic medications and symptom-specific interdisciplinary treatment concepts. How and when is mistletoe therapy used? How can patients become active co-creators on their path to healing?

  • In palliative medicine, physical symptoms such as dyspnea, pain and anasarca often present the treatment team with great challenges and require further development of interdisciplinary therapeutic concepts. Spiritual aspects play an important role, for example, in dealing with fear and pain as death approaches. How can the rapidly changing needs of patients be met with understanding and appropriate assistance?

Research news

Phase IV trial: Kalium phosphoricum comp. versus placebo in irritability and nervousness 
In a new clinical study, Kalium phosphoricum comp. (KPC) versus placebo was tested in 77 patients per group. In a post-hoc analysis of intra-individual differences after 6 weeks treatment, a significant advantage of KPC vs. placebo was shown for characteristic symptoms of nervous exhaustion and nervousness (p = 0.020, p = 0.045 respectively). In both groups six adverse events (AE) were assessed as causally related to treatment (severity mild or moderate). No AE resulted in discontinuation in treatment. KPC could therefore be a beneficial treatment option for symptomatic relief of neurasthenia. The study has been published open access in Current Medical Research and Opinion
https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2023.2291169.


Further information on Anthroposophic Medicine