What is Meant by Complimentary and Alternative Medicine?

BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT

When you think of alternative medicine, what definition do you use?

A large number of techniques that are outside the standard practice of medicine appear to work very well, together with lifestyle changes, in helping to achieve and maintain health and support a sense of well-being in people with non-serious diseases. Applying those same principles to more serious illness, such as cancer, is quite another matter. Until thorough scientific research is completed, there is no clear evidence that these techniques will cure cancer in the absence of standard treatment.

Nevertheless, there seems to almost be a rush to embrace some of the more alternative approaches to treatment. For example, Studies on Use of Alternative Therapies on the Alternative Medicine HomePage lists twenty-five reports that describe how people are making use of conventional and alternative therapies for a variety of illnesses.

The M.D. as an Alternative Practitioner, by Mary and Michael Morton, appears on the HealthWorld site and is excerpted from "Five Steps to Selecting the Best Alternative Medicine." It begins with two interesting statistics: (1) in the future, it is expected that the greatest number of practitioners of alternative medicine will be M.D.'s and (2) a recent survey of family physicians in the U.S. found that more than half regularly prescribe alternative treatments or have tried alternative therapies themselves.

James Gordon, M.D., who is the founder and director of The Center for Mind/Body Medicine and has devoted more than twenty-five years to the exploration and practice of mind-body medicine. He notes that, "We are in the process of a profound change in our model of medicine. The change is, or seems to be, taking place so fast that it may be useful now to take a step back to look at some of the reasons why medicine resists change and some of the forces that may now be compelling it."

Another exploration of the trend toward complementary and alternative treatment can be found in an excellent article entitled Report 12 of the Council on Scientific Affairs (A-97) of the American Medical Association (AMA), which represents the medical/scientific literature as of June 1997. The authors make this observation:

"The failure (real or perceived) of many physicians and medical specialities [sic] to understand and practice preventive medicine and to communicate effectively with patients, and conventional medicine's dependence on costly diagnostic and procedural interaction that ignores the human side of medicine may have helped spur public interest in alternative and unconventional therapy."

I would add to this analysis the observation that the public is more informed today about cancer treatment and won't sit back and simply let the doctor make all the decisions. Once knowledge escapes the control of medical professionals, the public is thrown into a wealth of information -- and misinformation. Without some guidance, it can be easy to draw the wrong conclusion from hype that plays upon one's hope.

Where can we find the guidance to sort the wheat from the chaff? Surprisingly, it is coming from the very medical profession that once disavowed any and all treatments that weren't developed by through sanctioned channels. In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) created the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) (originally called the Office of Alternative Medicine or OAM) for the specific purpose of evaluating new methods and claims in a scientific fashion.

© Copyright 1997, Revised 2002