Mainstream medicine reconsidering alternative medicines and

Dr. Mariana Markell, director of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System's Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, said the system is

considering the introduction of Reiki treatments.

"We're looking at ways of alleviating pain in patients, and nausea and anxiety," Markell said. "There's some evidence that Reiki may be useful."

The healing art is also being considered as a benefit to staffers, Markell added. "One of the reasons we're interested is many nurses burn out and don't concentrate on caring for themselves," she said. "This is a way of bringing the focus back to self-care."

Self-care is a main focus of many alternative treatments; so is holistic healing, which considers not only a patients' specific injury or illness but that person's entire physiological makeup.

The idea, Izzo said, is to treat body and mind, creating conditions conducive to healing whether at home or in a hospital.

"We're not working with symptoms primarily," the chiropractor said. "We're looking at people very differently than in a conventional model."

Dionisiou, the Reiki therapist who helped Doran, works out of Incentives, a Babylon spa that offers massage therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic treatments. The spa stocks teas from around the world and soothing sounds fill the air; outside car horns are blaring, but inside its chortling animal calls and bubbling brooks.

Doctor's offices are many things, but not always peaceful and soothing. The alternate universe of alternative medicines is another matter entirely.

"It's medical and spiritual, because it works on both levels," Dionisiou said. "And that's the beauty of it."

Dionisiou emphasizes the importance of lowering a patient's stress levels. "I get them to a peaceful state," she said. "I give them visualization to do. And I have them relax, breathe deeply."

Other alternative medicine practitioners agree that banishing tension is important, not only for alternative treatments to be successful, but to promote wellbeing in general.

"You help a person become more relaxed, at ease," Izzo said. "That in itself is healing."

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