Tufts media covering the research that Ramel Rones has been collaborating on with Tufts Medical Center for the last 15 years.
Hi mind-body students! This week, we have a special edition blog for you. You may have already seen that the Tufts Medical Center media team is covering the integrative therapies research that I have been collaborating with the center on for the last 15 years. Today I wanted to give my readers a look into the all the work that we have been doing.
Over these 15 years, me and my colleagues at the medical center engaged in many research topics including Rheumatoid Arthritis (an autoimmune condition) osteoarthritis of the knee, and Fibromyalgia (chronic pain).
What is Rheumatoid Arthritis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMHT0024678/
What is Osteoarthritis of the knee: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766936/
What is Fibromyalgia: https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/fibromyalgia
I was first challenged to design and then asked to teach and implement the Tai Chi intervention for each one of the conditions above. Over time, with hard work, and thanks to Dr. Chenchen Wang our center was able to get R-21 grant money and R-01 grant money from the NIH, allowing us to do much larger research. Between the smaller studies which took 3 years and the large ones that took another 6 years, I worked with hundreds of individuals who were diagnosed with any of these conditions. The tremendous changes that I witnessed over the years, from before and after the studies, were amazing. Regaining physical independence, reducing chronic pain, getting off pain medication, and the change in mood and quality of life are what led to our studies gaining notoriety.
In both the smaller and the larger studies that we conducted at Tufts, the participants who used my Tai Chi intervention showed excellent results, and our evidence appeared in several of the top medical journals and publications in the world, including:
NEJM publication about Fibromyalgia/chronic pain: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0912611
NCBI publication about Osteoarthritis of the knee: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27183035
Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!