Types of alternative therapy in health and medicine
There are five main types ofalternative therapy in health and medicine. The first of them are alternative medical systems - like traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathic or naturopathic medicine. Most of them evolved from earlier (than the conventional medicine) therapies and their efficiency may be proven by centuries of use. The second ones are so called mind-body interventions, which are believed to enhance the mind's capacity to affect bodily function and symptoms and thus increase the ability of organisms to defend and speed up healing process. Some of such therapies are now in common use in conventional medicine (for example:patient support groups), while others, like meditation, prayer and creative therapies by music, dance or art, still wait for their acceptation. Another type of alternative therapy in health and medicine are biologically based therapies, which use variety of natural substances like herbs, foods and vitamins. While some of them, especially herbs, are also used to produce drugs, many others, like shark cartilage, are still controversial. Massage, chiropractic and osteopathic are together considered as manipulative and body-based methods and it is believed, that they can be very helpful in overcoming many varieties of pain as well as spine damages. Last, but not least on this list are energy therapies, which are divided to bio-field therapies and therapies which use electromagnetic fields. While the effectiveness of first of them is hard to measure because existing of such thing as a bio-field has not been scientifically proven, many people consider such techniques as Reiki or Therapeutic Touch as very useful in diagnosis and hopeless cases.
Tendencies in alternative therapy in health and medicine
According to surveys, more than a half of adults in the United States are using one or more of alternative therapies, including health reason prayers and megavitamin therapy. Also about 50% of the doctors in the United States refers people to complementary and alternative practitioners, although they usually warn that alternative therapy in health and medicine should be chosen with caution and carried out only together with conventional treatment. Although we can find advertisements of miracle cure for almost every disease everywhere, Americans use alternative therapy in health and medicine mostly for their musculoskeletal problems or other painful conditions, colds, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression.
Is alternative medicine safe?
All people should be free to decide whatever method of healthcare they want, but when choosing an alternative medicine therapy, they should also be cautious. The main problems with such therapies are that there is not enough proper research on them and there are many people who offer so-called miracle cures which have nothing to do with the real unconventional medicine, but are commonly used as examples of possible hazards when using such treatments. Another common problem is that there are many practitioners who have no appropriate training and may not only make incorrect diagnosis, but also prescribe some wrong therapy. Furthermore, the danger can be increased when alternative medicine becomes supplement for conventional treatment or when our doctor is not informed about a therapy prescribed by a practitioner. In such cases overdosing of vitamins, elements or other substances by this double therapy may lead even to death. Still, even in unconventional medicine primum non nocere rule is present and it can be safe when a few important conditions are met. These are: accurate information on a therapy of our choice, proper education of a practitioner, regular contacts with our doctor during the whole therapy and, which is the most important - asking questions and searching for answers. Our common sense may lead us to safe and beneficial to our health alternative therapy, although it will require a bit of effort from us.
Skeptic's view of alternative medicine
Most of skeptics divide unconventional medicine into two branches: a contemporary medicine, which includes such practices as massage or some of herbs therapies used together with conventional healing and an alternative medicine which is based (in their opinion) on untested or non-scientific treatments or knowledge. Needless to say that in this way they are able to avoid the fact that contemporary medicine is partially nothing more than unconventional one, with only one exception it is working and it has been tested.
Another important argument in this debate is that practitioners of alternative medicine often encourage their patients to be optimistic and thus they are giving them false hope of recovering from their hopeless state only to get more money.
Skeptics also consider many of unconventional medicine remedies to work only as placebo and they have no true value for our health. And, last but not least, argument in this ongoing debate is that in many cases success of combining conventional and alternative therapy is given only to alternative. Patients who feel much better after starting alternative medicine therapy have such sensation only because of psychological effects.
