Illness can occur in anyone at any time and may be accompanied by pain, such as cancer and arthritis. Many patients believe they can find cures in other types of medicine without the side-effects of chemotherapy and other medications. This type of medical treatment is known as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Patients who believe in CAM may try various techniques from acupuncture, hypnosis, magnetic therapy, homeopathy, and even urine therapy. The main reason people start to use certain medications or therapies is because other people used them and experienced some kind of benefit. Since everyone is different, the effects may be different. Some therapies and medications work, and some are placebos.
There is a lot of confusion about the differences between complementary medicine and alternative medicine. Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine such as the use of acupuncture to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer. On the other hand, alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine such as the treatment of urine therapy instead of chemotherapy. CAM therapies are generally unknown by many people in today’s Western society. Western medical schools and hospitals usually do not educate or inform employees about complementary and alternative medical practices, which is why they are not well accepted by the medical community as standard or conventional form of medicine (Medicine Net, 2006). Some of the CAM therapies have been documented in various trials, many failed to show any real effects, which suggests that the placebo effect plays a major role in these therapies.
One form of complementary therapy is acupuncture, which involves the placement of thin needles into...
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In today’s world, many people assume that the latest medical technology and treatments are always the best option. However, all over the world, different techniques for curing diseases and aliments are being used. These methods fall under the category of complementary and alternative medicine.
Chinese physicians discovered over 5,000 years ago that the arousal of certain areas on the skin affect the operation of the bodies organs and organ systems (http://www.demon.co.uk). Acupuncture works to restore homeostasis to the body through the insertion of stainless steel needles into acupoints below the surface of the skin (http://www.holistic.com.). The body is made up of lines of energy called Qi, that "communicate fro...
Nowadays, complementary alternative medicine is very popular in the United States. It is widely used by adults and children. National health statistic reports done in 2007 shows that 38.3% of adults and 11.8% of children use some form of alternative medicine (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). But why is this happening? Why is it becoming so popular? Why are more people turning to it? Many times, this is because conventional medicine has not work and they want to try an alternative. That is the case of the author of this paper.
There are many different uses of alternative medicine and that can be used in a variety of situations. Some people may be skeptical of alternative medicine since they are not aware of the facts and statistics. By homeopathy becoming more popular people will not be as skeptical. “Despite the successes of many alternative therapies, the phrase "alternative medicine" has not acquired a completely respectable air. To many, especially doctors trained in conventional medicine, "alternative therapies" seem unscientific and dangerous” (Badertscher). As the author shows that although alternative medicine may seem skeptical to people, there are many reasons to prove that alternative medicine is an overall better solution. Badertscher also explains the many benefits to his view of alternative medicine of seeking to work with the body 's own natural healing processes” (Badertscher). For example, a person may suffer from chronic back pain may decide to go to a chiropractor instead of using medication such as oxycodone. In this Badertscher shows the benefit that using the body’s natural healing does and that it puts the person in control of their
For many centuries, humanity has been on an eternal quest for cures and treatments for many chronic conditions. At the present time, conventional medicine is mostly performed by doctors and other health care professionals, with the extensive use of pharmaceutical drugs, surgery or radiation treatments for disease treatment. Conversely, even though not as popular, complementary and alternative medicine and treatment options are slowly gaining popularity and becoming an addition to traditional medicine.
These alternative treatments include acupuncture, meditation, and therapy among many others.There is growing evidence that the desire for alternative medicine is expanding because people undergoing procedures in today’s health care system has had unmet needs as well as feelings of being uncared for (Acari & Flanagan, 2015). Alternative medicine is able to provide patients with treatments that provide relief for hard to cure problems such as back pain, neck pain, and arthritis. Many of these alternative treatments have been shown to be successful for various problems. The use of complimentary and alternative medicine as well as the open ended communication that holistic nursing provides is gaining popularity from patients who are fed up with traditional care and hospital
There has been a growing trend over the past few years in health care using Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) or also known as Eastern medicine. The new and emerging type of health care has been around for thousands of years, but in recent years have been more accepting in Western culture. CAM is described as, “a wide range of practices, technologies and treatments not traditionally associated with the medical professions or medical curriculum” (Solomon & Adams, 2015). There are many different types of CAM health care. Some of the more popular practices include acupuncture, massage therapy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic and herbal remedies. Each of these therapies are used in different ways to help with the overall
Most of the time when going to the doctor’s office they will prescribe a prescription drug to the patient to help manage their pain. This pain can be described as a “sensation of physical or mental suffering or hurt that usually causes distress or agony to the one experiencing it.” (Taylor, Lillis, LeMone, and Lynn, 2011) However, there are some instances where medication may not be enough for some patients; they may require more relief than what a prescription drug can offer. This is why many patients may benefit from complementary and alternative therapies (CAT). These types of interventions are “complementary therapies (they can be used with traditional medical interventions and thus complement them).” (Taylor et al., 2011)
Complementary therapies are alternatives to conventional medicine, which advance conventional health care. These therapies have been around for a while but are becoming more popular in nursing and in health care (O`Regan et al., 2010, p. 35). It is shown that...
Introduction Clinical trials are a gateway to proven practical medical treatment, so it requires accuracy and validity of the outcomes. Placebo control trials are therefore employed in clinical trials as nearly half of academic physicians have answered in a questionnaire that they had used a placebo in their clinical trials (Sherman and Hickner, 2007). To have the higher scientific validity of results on the clinical trials requires that prospective, carefully selected subjects and endpoints, a control group, randomly allocated subjects into a treatment group and a control group, blinded both subject groups and investigators, sufficient sample size, and an approved independent ethics committee and monitoring by data safety and monitoring board to have stronger the scientific validity on the clinical trials (Brody, 1997). The use of placebos will enable more scientifically reliable outcomes. However, unnecessarily or ineffectiveness of placebo use is also claimed, therefore considering appropriate conditions and suitable cases would be needed for placebo use. .
Acupuncture doesn’t allow people to get ahead of themselves like Victor did; the way of thinking brought about is that of a natural sense. The techniques of the alternative medicine allow people to remember how magnificent and sacred the human body is and realize that it cannot be created through lab work or perfected through medicine. With Western medicine, patients can take up to four or five medications before finding one that suits their needs and most can have many life threatening side effects. With acupuncture, it is one procedure and one attempt to heal a patient with NO major side effects. Acupuncture is a unique ancient art that is backed by thousands of years of Chinese thought and research and has been proven affective for many people and their illnesses.
About 40% of Americans use some type of method outside the mainstream of conventional medicine. When hearing medicines that are being described outside the mainstream, you hear terms like complementary, alternative, or integrated medicine (CAM). Complementary medicine is usually referred to as medicine being combined with conventional medicine. Alternative medicine is usually ref...
The study of Shang et al compared placebo-controlled trails of homeopathy and allopathy (2). The study consisted of a literature search for placebo-controlled homeopathic trials in a wide variety of databases. The authors found 110 eligible placebo controlled trials of homeopathy that they could use in this study. Furthermore, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register was used to identify placebo-controlled trials of conventional medicine. These conventional medicine trails were matched with the homeopathic trials for comparison. These pairs of trials were categorised by clinical topic.
Herbal products are medicinal agents obtained from the plants. It’s all started 100 years ago by ancient people. Since synthetic medicine are not yet invented by that time, ancient people had invented medicine out of the plants. Through generations the original herbal medicine had been modified due to the new knowledge discovered and technologies invented.