What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine?
Have you ever wondered why certain illness are not going away? Read through this story and you might understand why?
Margaret came to see the physician for suffering from unexplained tiredness also known as “Tired All The Time”. So as usual her physician recommended all the tests but nothing abnormal was revealed in the results, hence physician advised her to take some rest and time off from work to recoup herself.
She followed the advise and there was no improvement after taking rest also.Again she went to the physician and a dietary analysis was recommended. It was found out that she was drinking and eating a huge amount of food which were low in nutrients and high in stimulants. She was taking more coffee, pizzas, fast food meals.
What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine?
Complementary and Alternative methods of healing are various systems of remedial techniques used in treating the diseases that are not included in the traditional medical curricula taught in the United States and Great Britain.
These are the non-conventional ways of dealing with human health hazards. The term complementary and alternative techniques covers a broad range of natural therapies through the use of herbs, vitamins and minerals, diet and nutrition, physical touch, and other biological methods for the treatment of mind, body and spirit. Alternative medicine implies using only the nontraditional methods.
In Western culture, any healing or a health practice that is incompatible with conventional medicine is regarded as an alternative method. Complementary medicine is, likewise, a means of providing additional healing properties to an individual and helps in easing the discomfort of sickness and disease. Complementary and alternative medicine is an umbrella term which includes both these branches.
Complementary Medicine – Your Choices
The ability for a patient to be counseled on treatment choices when seeking conventional treatment is called Complementary Medicine (CM). A patient’s decision in therapies and services are important as an ethical, political, and moral necessity in the medical world. While providing these people with choice in treatment, it is also necessary to counsel them in the right methods to choose because they may choose treatments that are too costly, unnecessary or not available for the ailment they have.
Sometimes limits occur in the health care choices available to patients, and conflicts are created. Health care resources are often limited to patient decision because of the inability to continuously fund certain kind of diagnostic functions, and conflict arises.
Another issue that arises is that complementary medicine is a service that is paid for outside of medical care, and individuals with lower incomes are not able to afford this service. Most of these sick person are satisfied with CM services which make the inequalities quite unfair.