What is complementary and alternative medicine?

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What is complementary and alternative medicine?
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Popularly known as CAM, complementary and
alternative medicine is that type of medicine
which consists of numerous treatment advancements
categorized outside the area of traditional
medicine. A growing amount of investigation is
being done to create the security and
effectiveness of alternative medicine. However,
when compared to conventional western therapies
like drugs, good amount of research on this type
of medicine is still needed.
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Finding the differences It is significant to
know the difference between complementary
medicine and alternative medicine. Even though
these two concepts are frequently lumped together
however in true sense, they differ. Complementary
medicine is more concerned about healing
practices that work in combination with
conventional medicine. For instance, a patient
who is suffering from cancer and receives
chemotherapy might at the same time undergo
acupuncture to help administer chemo side effects
such as vomiting and nausea.
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Alternative medicine varies in that it is not
used as a complement to, but quite as an
alternative for conventional therapy. For
instance, a cancer patient who undergoes
recommended chemotherapy and instead selects to
treat the illness with precise dietary
changes. Who uses CAM? A recent survey
conducted by  The National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine or NCCAM
revealed that around 40 adults and 12 children
use complementary and alternative medicine in
some form or the other .
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Women between the age group of 40 to 60 and
people with high income were found to use CAM
often as compared to other people. There have
been substantial increases in the number of
people who use some forms of complementary and
alternative medicine or the other. Some of the
most popular ones are massage therapy,
meditation, yoga and acupuncture. Varied
categories of CAM The National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
has listed down 5 major categories of
complementary and alternative medicine. These
include
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Mind-body medicine This includes treatments that
are concerned about your mental and emotional
situations. Examples are meditation, music
therapy etc. Whole medical systems This refers
to the entire systems of medicinal theory and
practice, several of which revert thousands of
years and have roots in non-western cultures.
Examples include traditional Chinese medicine and
Ayurveda, a therapy that originated in India.
Whole medical systems from the West include
homeopathy and naturopathy.
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Manipulative and body-based practices Depending
upon the physical management of the body, this
exercise is planned to recover precise symptoms
and health as a whole. Examples are osteopathy
and chiropractic. Energy medicine This
alternative medicine makes use of energy fields
to endorse healing. It affects energy fields that
encircle your body. Practices include qi gong and
reiki.
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Biologically based practices This lays focus on
herbs, nutrition, and vitamins, dietary
supplements and herbal medicine. A rising
interest in such types of therapies is resulting
in more and more researches, but several of these
biologically based forms have yet to be
methodically tested.
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