Integrative Medicine for Midlife Women’s Health

Call for Papers

Midlife women experience a variety of symptoms and health concerns, some of which are related to menopause and others to aging. Integrative medicine is commonly used for health conditions in midlife women, but the state of evidence is often lacking. Because of concerns about menopausal hormone therapy, both practitioners and patients are seeking alternatives to hormones for managing menopausal symptoms. In addition, other common conditions, such as osteoporosis and insomnia, have evidence-based pharmaceutical treatments, but patients and their practitioners may be concerned about the side effect profiles. Lastly, some conditions, such as hypoactive sexual arousal disorder, have limited effective treatments.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate the continuing efforts to determine effective approaches to managing health conditions and symptoms that commonly occur in women at midlife. We are particularly interested in articles describing epidemiology and usage of integrative medicine modalities in this population, health services research (including cost-benefit analyses of integrative medicine for midlife women’s health conditions), and novel clinical research in pilot studies or larger, adequately powered clinical trials for commonly used modalities. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Integrative medicine approaches to menopausal symptoms such as vasomotor symptoms and atrophic vaginitis
• Integrative medicine approaches to prevention and treatment of osteopenia and osteoporosis
• Integrative medicine approaches to insomnia and sleep disorders in midlife women
• Integrative medicine approaches to mood changes such as anxiety and depression in midlife women
• Integrative medicine approaches to treat sexual dysfunction in midlife women and men
• Integrative medicine approaches to prevention of cardiovascular disease in women
• Integrative medicine approaches to prevention or treatment of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, or weight management in midlife women
• Epidemiology of the usage of integrative medicine for menopausal symptoms, bone health, sleep disorders, mood changes, sexual dysfunction, and prevention of cardiovascular disease
• Cost-benefit and cost-effective analyses for the use of integrative medicine for menopausal symptoms, bone health, sleep disorders, mood changes, sexual dysfunction, and prevention of cardiovascular disease

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/ecam/midl/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Judith Balk, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Temple University School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Guest Editors

• Brent Bauer, Director Integrative Medicine Program, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
• Susan Gould-Fogerite, Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Primary Care, School of Health Related Professions, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, USA
• Shelley R. Adler, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and Zen Hospice Project University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
• André-Michael Beer, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany