Actualidad de la medicina termal

Abstract

The use of mineral-medicinal water, ingrained in Western culture since ancient times, has ersisted until today with great validity as a traditional complementary therapeutic modality in various chronic diseases. Medical Hydrology, Balneotherapy or Thermal medicine comprises a wide spectrum of therapeutic modalities that use mineral-medicinal waters and thermal products accompanied by other therapeutic resources, mainly physical medicine, health education, exercise, diet and environmental factors, used during the stay in a thermal establishment. Since the late 80s of the last century, medical hydrology begins to acquire a new dimension and recognition due to various factors derived from the important changes in current socio-sanitary demography and to advances in research aimed at demonstrating therapeutic efficacy with the methodological bases of evidence-based medicine. Basic research has also made important advances in the knowledge of the mechanisms of action of balneotherapy allowing to establish a current scientific approach to thermal medicine. Currently, thermal treatments are used with 3 objectives: the management of chronic diseases usually accompanied by comorbidity, with musculoskeletal pathology being the most frequent, followed at a great distance by respiratory diseases; secondly in the prevention of common diseases, and thirdly in recovery after acute processes and in rehabilitation medicine.