EverWell's treatment integrates traditions 

Atlanta Journal/Constitution; 12/31/98

 The EverWell Health Care Center in Peachtree City may be brand-new, but the practices going inside date back  more than 3,000 years.
The center, which opened Dec. 15 and is owned by a Dallas-based company called Holisticos, is built around traditional Chinese medicine and incorporates practices like acupuncture, Tui Na (ancient Asian physical therapy) and herbal medicine.

   Separating themselves from a lot of holistic medicine practitioners, says Therese O'Brien, a marketing director for EverWell,  the centers practice integrative medicine, not replacements for Western medicine.

   O'Brien explains that the goal is not to take the place of conventional physicians but to broaden treatment options, especially for patients with chronic pain and other conditions for which main-stream medicine is no longer helping.

   Instead of prescribing procedures and dispensing prescriptions, EverWell relies on natural treatments like acupressure massages and herbal concoctions, according to O'Brien, who adds that, while herbs are not yet regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, EverWell took care to find a reputable supplier. "We went through a six- or seven-month process of selecting an herb vendor, and the one
we chose runs their lab as if they were FDA-regulated," O'Brien said.

   Another major component of the Peachtree City EverWell center is neurofeedback therapy for children with attention deficit disorder. The treatment was designed to replace medications like Ritalin commonly prescribed for the condition by, in essence, retraining the brain to function properly with games and mental exercises. The Peachtree City Center is the fourth EverWell to open in the Atlanta area in the
last year, and the fifth one, in Gwinnett County, should open its doors this spring.

   Each center has a team of health-care professionals including a registered nurse, nutritionists, chiropractors and traditional Chinese medical specialists who graduated from an accredited traditional Chinese medical school in mainland China.