Complementary and Alternative Medicine
The term alternative medicine refers to therapies and diagnostic procedures that are used instead of those of conventional medicine, whereas complementary medicine refers to therapies and diagnostic procedures that are used in addition to those of conventional medicine. The same therapy can be alternative or complementary, depending on its use. For example, a dietary program for treating cancer sometimes is used as a complement to surgery but also may be employed as an alternative to chemotherapy. The term complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a standard way of referring to both, whereas integrative medicine refers to medical practices that bring together conventional medicine and CAM. Experimental medicine refers to therapies, usually drugs, that are undergoing testing for regulatory approval.
Classification of Cam
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2003) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health classifies CAM into the following subcategories: alternative medical systems such as Chinese medicine and naturopathic (a type of nutritional and dietary) medicine; mind-body interventions that are not mainstream, such as prayer, meditation, and mental healing; biologically based therapies such as dietary supplements and herbs (one also would include here immunological therapies that are not in clinical trials); manipulative therapies such as chiropractic; and therapies based on electromagnetic energy or forms of energy that are not accepted by contemporary science.
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