Many people are using alternative treaments in addition to Western-style medicine. This approach can produce better results than an either/or approach:
“Naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage—we often use the word “alternative” to describe these therapies.
But alternative is perhaps not the right word. As Geary points out, the word implies there is a choice—a rejection of conventional medicine. “They don’t have to choose one or the other, they can have both,” she says.
When the National Institute of Health established a center for alterative medicine in 1998, they called it The National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and defined complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as being outside the typical realm of conventional medicine.
The many and diverse therapies that are encompassed by that definition NCCAM divides into five categories, although they recognize some practices overlap the categories: biologically based practices (use of herbs, special diets, and vitamins), energy medicine (use of energy fields as in Reiki, Qigong, or healing touch), manipulative and body-based (such as Bowen technique, chiropractic, craniosacral, and massage), mind-body medicine (for example, hypnosis, meditation, and yoga), and whole medical systems (complete medical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine or naturopathy, that have evolved separate from or parallel with conventional medicine).
A growing number of Americans are turning to CAM therapies: According to a report from the Center for Disease Control from a survey done in 2002, 36 percent of adults used some type of CAM therapy over a 12-month period. If prayer was included as a therapy that number jumped to 62 percent. Natural products, deep breathing, meditation, chiropractic care, yoga, massage, and diet were the other most often used therapies. Pain of all kinds (back, neck, joint), colds, anxiety, and depression are some of the more common reasons that people sought out CAM therapies.
Although 28 percent of the people in the study who used CAM therapy felt that conventional medicine could not help them, 54.9 percent believed that a combination of conventional and CAM therapy would help.
HOLISM: SEARCHING FOR THE SOURCE OF DISEASE
Holistic and natural characterize the approach that many practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine take. Whereas conventional medicine often focuses on the treatment of symptoms with medicine or surgery, a holistic approach attempts to find and treat the source of a symptom with natural methods, and has a strong belief in the body’s ability to heal itself given the right conditions.”
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