Tai Chi, a Traditional “Medication in Motion” in the 21st Century

XX Safety, Health and Environment World Congress SHEWC2020 

Abstract. The world lives at the confluence of the 'impending disaster' of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), nearness of a post-antibiotic era due the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics and other antimicrobial agentes, iatrogenesis, adoption of unhealthy lifestyles, rapid urbanization without planning, demographic aging, marketing of unhealthy products, insufficient physical activity, growing influence of environmental factors on the global disease burden and now, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Measures taken against the coronavirus could have a number of consequences, especially in the area of mental health.

Due to the corona pandemic, the focus of attention at this time is on WHO; however, the half-century efforts of the world health agency to bring Traditional Medicine to the center of health care in an appropriate, effective and safe manner are little known.

Traditional Medicine is defined as "the sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis,  improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness".

TM is generally close to home, affordable and reasonably priced and in some Asian and African countries up to 80% of the population depends on TM for primary health care.

For many millions of people, usually living in rural areas of developing countries, herbal medicines, traditional treatments and traditional doctors are the main - sometimes the only - source of health care.

The World Health Assembly in the last half century passed several resolutions on TM and WHO developed global TM Strategies, organized TM World Congresses and published a series of documents such as Guidelines and TM Benchmarks.

As Dr. Margareth Chan, former director of WHO, predicted, the moment has never been more opportune and the reasons have never been greater for giving TM its proper place in the treatment of the many evils that challenge the modern societies.

Today as an option "innovative" integrative treatment, Tai Chi is becoming increasingly prominent. Harvard said that TC, a body-mind technique that is part of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has value in treating or preventing many health problems and describes TC as a "medication in motion" that can be the "perfect activity for the rest of life" that the people can get started even if they aren't in top shape or the best of health.

The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi is a reference book in terms of TM.

David Hruodbeorth