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Alternative Medicine Expands Treatment Options
How Complementary and Alternative Medicine can open a New World
of Possibilities
If you mentioned the term alternative medicine 10 or 20 years
ago, most would assume that only people who fell outside the
mainstream practiced this form of healing. But today,
complementary, integrative, and alternative medicine are now
often included by physicians and hospitals such as Memorial
Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins, and Cleveland Clinic as part of
a more holistic approach to patient care.
Many of alternative medicine's proponents, like Dr. Dean Ornish
and Dr. Andrew Weil, are well known and often featured in the
popular media. In fact, even the National Institutes of Health
has become involved with alternative medicine, creating the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(NCCAM) in 1998 to explore these forms of treatment from a
rigorous scientific perspective and encourage the incorporation
of proven alternative medicine practices into conventional
medicine.
What is alternative medicine? Alternative medicine covers an
incredibly wide scope of treatments and healing systems, some
familiar, like acupuncture and homeopathic medicine, and others
less well known, like biofield therapies and the Indian medical
system known as Ayurveda.
In general, the term alternative medicine refers to using
non-conventional approaches to health care in place of
traditional Western medicine. Complementary medicine describes
combining alternative medicine with conventional medicine, for
example using acupuncture to treat the nausea a cancer patient
experiences as a result of chemotherapy. Integrative medicine,
according to NCCAM, combines mainstream and alternative medicine
treatments for which there is scientific evidence of
effectiveness and safety. Others define integrative medicine
somewhat differently, believing it's centered on a combination
of treatment approaches that address not only physical well
being, but also the psychological, social, and spiritual aspects
of health and disease.
There are five widely accepted ways of classifying alternative
and complementary medicine:
Alternative medical systems which include approaches to medicine
that have often developed outside the confines of Western
medical practice like Chinese medicine and Ayurveda or others
that developed within Western cultures but don't follow the
dictates of traditional Western medicine like homeopathy or
naturopathy
Mind-body medicine which focuses on using the power of the mind
to improve health, for example meditation, prayer, and art,
music, or dance therapy
Biologically based therapies that use herbs, foods, and vitamins
to treat illnesses
Manipulative methods like chiropractic and osteopathic care and
massage which seek to heal through movement of different parts
of the body Energy therapies, including biofield therapies like
Reiki which affect energy fields that some believe surround the
body and bioelectromagnetic-based therapies which use
electromagnetism to treat disease How common is the use of
alternative medicine in the U.S.?
A comprehensive survey on the use of alternative medicine in
America was released by NCCAM in 2004. The results demonstrate
that alternative medicine has moved firmly into the mainstream.
Nearly 75% of the more than
30,000 people surveyed reported they
had used some form of complementary or alternative medicine
sometime during their lives, while more than 62% said they had
used it in the past 12 months. When prayer and megavitamin
therapy are removed from the mix, 36% of those questioned had
used a form of alternative medicine during the last year.
Women choose complementary and alternative medicine more often
than men, as do those with higher levels of education and people
who have been in the hospital in the past year. The most common
conditions that lead people to try complementary or alternative
medicine are chronic back, joint, neck, and head pain. Other
conditions mentioned include colds, anxiety and depression,
stomach problems, and insomnia.
Asked why they turned to alternative medicine, 55% of those
surveyed believed it would improve their health when it was
combined with conventional medicine. Other surveys put U.S.
spending on alternative medicine at $36 to $47 billion in 1997,
the most recent year for which the information is available.
Natural does not necessarily mean safe: How to discern what
works and what is safe While combining alternative medicine with
traditional treatments can yield improved health, many people
make the mistake of assuming that "natural" treatments are
always safe and don't need special scrutiny. That misjudgment
can be dangerous or even fatal.
A recent Canadian study by Dr. Beth Abramson found that 45% of
the cardiology patients she interviewed were using complementary
and alternative medicine, but just over half said their
cardiologist was aware of this. A number of vitamins and herbal
supplements can have serious contraindications for patients
taking any number of cardiovascular medications. Hawthorne
berries, for example, taken to lower blood pressure can be
dangerous in combination with other medications and vitamin E
can cause patients taking blood thinners like Coumadin to suffer
brain hemorrhages.
It is essential for you to tell all your doctors about every
treatment, vitamin, and supplement you use. It's also vital that
you choose alternative medicine providers with proper
credentials, training, and experience and treatments that have
been studied scientifically and been shown to be both safe and
effective.
Expert guidance is also valuable when assessing alternative
medicine treatments. PinnacleCare offers its members access to
well-respected alternative medicine practitioners like Evan
Ross, L.Ac., DOM., a board certified, licensed acupuncturist,
Doctor of Oriental Medicine, and member of PinnacleCare's
Medical Advisory Board. In addition, PinnacleCare's health care
advocates develop for each member a comprehensive, complete
health history which is made available to every medical
practitioner who treats the member. That both helps the member
receive strategically crafted, holistic care as well as avoiding
dangerous drug and alternative medicine interactions.
"In my practice, I've found that regular and consistent
complementary treatments help people do better," said Ross.
"They will tolerate their conventional treatments and have a
better quality of life."
About the author:
To learn more about PinnacleCare services, its PinnacleCare
Advocates and read more Member testimonials, please visit;
www.PinnacleCare.com
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