Yalta is a paradise on the shores of the Black Sea, protected from the cold winds by mountains. It has naturally become known as a resort area, and has been the subject of the works of numerous poets and artists.
Known as the "Pearl of the Crimea," Yalta has the best climate in the former Soviet Union. As a result, it has developed as a health resort area, with people coming from all over the country (and the world) to undergo various therapies, or to relax in the rejuvenating climate.
Former palaces have been converted into health spas, and numerous alternative therapies are available in the hospitals and on the streets in less formal settings.
The Practice of Acupuncture in Russia
It is in the beach-blessed city of Yalta that numerous "alternative" health methods are regularly practiced. One of these is acupuncture.
In Russia, acupuncture is part of the curriculum in at least half a dozen universities, and there are well over 1000 practitioners.
It was the Russians who developed an electrical machine called a tobi-scope which flashes whenever it passes over an acupuncture point. If it flashes brightly, it indicates a healthy point. A dull flash suggests potential or actual disease.
Bibliography
Alternative Medicine, Dr. Andrew Stanway, Bloomsbury Books, (Penguin Books,) London, 1992.
Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a method for learned control of physiological responses of the body. A patient can learn to monitor and improve themselves using this technique. Biofeedback machines can assist by measuring responses in the voluntary system, such as skeletal musculature, or in the involuntary, or autonomic, nervous system, such as heart rate, vascular responses, and sympathetic discharges.
Experiments which mostly used animals began in the 1950s and increased in the 1960s.
Here is an example of how it might work: an anxious or hyper tense patient with fast heartbeat benefits more by learning to slow their heart rate rather then by relaxing muscles. They can do this themselves just by measuring and knowing their own rates, thereby knowing how they can adjust it accordingly.
Biofeedback can also be used to control certain biological responses that can cause health problems, such as headaches, chronically taut muscles from accidents or sports injuries, asthma, high blood pressure, and heart arrhythmias. As well, it's often used in pain control.
The patient is connected to a computer by a polygraph, and the response is presented to the patient in either a binary or an analog fashion.
In the beginning of the therapy, the therapist makes the task fairly easy for the patient, but increases the challenge as the patient is able to overcome their problem.
By eventually learning to control their own body functions without the use of the instruments, the patient becomes their own therapist.
