Abstract:

The word Qi means “breath of life”, Chinese explained it as life energy in human body. It has been evolved as central concept in Chinese medicine as a life force and flow on energy which is essential to sustain human health and life. Qi,’’ a person’s vital energy force that circulates in the body through channels, supposed to be produced by visualization and affirmation. Due to limitations and side effects of conventional medical treatment, patients are increasingly utilizing complementary therapies. However, evidence for the safety and efficacy of qi-gong treatments is limited. The purpose of the current review was to investigate evidence for the role of Qigong in supportive care. Literature review is conducted using the search engines, Pubmed, Google scholar, Springer Link and CINHYL. Only scientific published articles were retrieved from the year 2001-2016. The effects of qigong on physical and psychosocial outcomes were examined in 28 studies and the effects on biomedical outcomes were examined in 15 studies. RCTs with larger sample sizes reflected positive results for the role of qigong in improving mood and fatigue parameters, fibromyalgia, cancer, diabetes mellitus, Arthiritis, Parkinson’s disease and reducing inflammation. Moreover, qigong exercise in combination with conventional methods had significant improvement in immune function. Hence, Qigong has encouraging results in many of the progressive and poor prognosis diseases, hence, utilization of Qigong by the health care providers should be supported in quality improvisation.

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