What Is Alternative Health Care?
Alternative medicine is an umbrella notion used for different healing practices which have the effects of medicine. Alternative medical systems include acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy; as well as traditional medicine practices such as: Ayurveda, shamanism, faith healing and other.
Does It Really Work?
Alternative medicine is perceived by its users to have healing effects, however, it is not an established science since evidence have not been gathered in a scientific method to show its effects on the patients. Since effects of alternative medicine have not been scientifically proven it is often criticized by scientists and researchers often being labeled as quackery and accused of deceiving its patients.
Research
The United States government has spent $2.5 billion dollars on testing alternative medicine, and yet it has not shown greater effects on its users than placebo drugs. Therefore alternative medicine has not yet earned the status of being a recognized form of treatment for many medical conditions.
Research Funding
The effectiveness of alternative medicine is researched however scientific proofs of its effectiveness are rarely found. The majority of research done on the effectiveness of alternative treatments has been funded from variety of public and private sources and different governments; however, the results so far have not established alternative medicine as a successful treatment for medical conditions.
Complementary Medicine
Some general physicians offer their patients complementary medicine. This results in a treatment which covers mind-body therapy as well as drug and non-drug therapy and tries to find a solution to your problem in various ways.
Critics
Alternative medicine is often criticized due to the fact that some treatment might cause psychological effects and make patients believe that they have been healed, when in fact they have been not been healed. This placebo effect in patients have been a hurdle which is not easily overcome by patients and the subjective feeling of being healed by alternative medicine has only damaged its reputation as a serious medical treatment and continues to put it on the side of quackery skills and reduce its credibility as a true medical practice in scientific circles.
Should You Try Alternative Medicine?
A lot of people in search for cure and treatment turn to alternative medicine, especially if traditional medicine has left them disappointed and without an answer. Ultimately, trying different treatments cannot hurt you and when you suffer from an illness getting better is what matters the most. Some people may try alternative medicine before trying traditional medicine in fear that drugs which traditional medicine offers might only damage their overall health. The problems arise when people refuse traditional medicine in search for cure within the range of alternative medicine only. Therefore it is important to remember, there is no such thing as alternative or traditional medicine, only the one that works and the one that doesn’t, and as a patient you should just find the one that does – it is just that simple.
