A unique medical initiative in the Austrian Alps optimises age-old traditional treatments with a modern approach
Professor Arnulf Hartl, head of the Institute of Ecomedicine at Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg tells Smart Regions about the benefits of Alpine treatments.
“The last 100 years, were characterized by a diminishing of old healing space of old resources.
“We tried to re innovate, those old style kind of remedies and to bring in some modern medical evidence in something that got lost in the last 50 years because of this very, very good pharmacology that medicine has available. But there are a lot of aspects that cannot be substituted by pharmacology. And this is for example, the exercise. Exercise is very important as a preventive medical factor and doing exercise in the moutains is much more effective that in a fitness studio.
“We have in some parts of Europe, in some parts of the alpine region, problems with persons that are leaving the countryside, leaving in bigger cities. This is for example, the Piedmont region was of it in the north of Italy. These are some parts of Austria. And we have a problem with qualified women's jobs. We have a lot of jobs in hotelery, gastronomy. But qualified women's jobs are one of our goals that we try to reach in our strategic project.
"If you bring here medical doctors, if you create job for medical doctors and for paramedical, then you have a chance to stimulate innovation in peripheral regions.
Click on the video to see the interview extract in full