Donna Karan Brings Holistic Therapy To Cancer Patients
Designer-to-the-stars Donna Karan is an active supporter of holistic treatments for cancer patients- and her Urban Zen Foundation is now taking those treatments to one New York hospital.
Urban Zen is developing a program of alternative therapies including yoga, meditation and aromatherapy that cancer patients can rely on from diagnosis through treatment at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. The hope? That integrative treatments will be successful at supporting medical treatments and popssibly become a standard in all oncology units.
Karan lost her husband to cancer in 2001 and through that experience she identified the need for comforting therapy to ease the pain, anxiety and nausea associated with cancer.
“Who deals holistically with the person?…How do we deliver the optimum care to a loved one?…We came up with the concept and idea to utilize the yoga community,” said Karan.
Urban Zen is currently training one hundred integrative therapists to use alternative therapy in support of nurses and doctors. In addition to yoga and meditation practice, Karan said that MP3 players with relaxing music and a calming sanctuary area will also be available to patients and their loved ones.
“Urban Zen for me is finding the calm in the chaos… in the chaos of disease, where is the calm in it? How do we calm ourselves so we can deal with the disease?” said Karan. Her new program attempts to answer those questions.
We love the concept of uniting mind, body and spirit therapies in support of cancer patients and we hope that the success of Urban Zen’s program will make it a treatment standard!
Jolene Hart is a freelance writer and natural beauty expert with a passion for mind, body and planet - just like Healthy Hollywood!
A former beauty writer for InStyle magazine, Self magazine, and People magazine, she has covered every aspect of the beauty industry from product breakthroughs to red carpet beauty to backstage trends at fashion week. Find more of her work at 
[...] here: Donna Karan Brings Holistic Therapy To Cancer Patients| Healthy … June 26th, 2009 | Tags: bringing-alternative, death, donna, donna-karan, farrah, from-the-royal, [...]
The term holistic therapy is a term that covers an incredibly wide range of treatments, massages and therapies. Holistic therapy in essence, shares a basic philosophy of treating the mind, body and spirit as one entity as opposed to just concentrating on specific parts of your physical being as is generally practiced in traditional Western medicine.
With holistic therapy, sometimes know as complementary or holistic medicine, there is an emphasis on using natural methods to restore the body’s balance and improving overall well being. Rather than pump you full of chemicals, holistic therapists aim to use what exists in nature to help you build up your defense systems and your own ability to self heal.