In today’s day and age we are recognizing more and more about the affects that our bodies are having with what we put inside of them. There are many advantages to using alternative medicine over the typical mainstream prescriptions and medicines. Health care professionals themselves are even becoming more and more open to alternative medicine and the benefits it can have for the body. Advantage #2: It is an improvement of the Quality of Life. When we use prescription drugs we generally see an improvement in pain, but once the drug goes out of our system the pain returns. When using alternative medicine, there is a drastic improvement in the quality of life a person has. Advantage #3: It is safer. Alternative medicine is a wide spectrum of therapies, and they are almost
always considered to be much safer than mainstream medicine. Natural remedies are used to correct the problem. There are no man-made, unnatural substances that you would be using to put in your body. Advantage #4: It does not have bad side effects. When using mainstream medicine you might be able to get rid of your headache, but the side effects might include nausea, hallucinations and risk of stroke in the process. Almost all mainstream medicine has some type of
warning about the bad side effects that come from taking it, where natural remedies don’t. Advantage #5: It is more flexible. Alternative medicine allows more flexibility in treatment plans. Many chiropractors and alternative medicine professionals’ change their treatment plans according to lifestyle changes, where mainstream medical professionals wouldn’t. Advantage #6: It looks at overall health of your body. Alternative medicine focuses
on healing pain and disease by balancing out other aspects of your life. Sleep, nutrition and stress can affect your body, so adapting health plans with these in mind is important with alternative medicine. Mainstream medicine is not nearly as well rounded. Advantage #7: It doesn’t offer dependency treatment options. Prescription pills can cause dependency and other harmful side effects to the body and mind. Alternative medicine does not have those same
disadvantages.
Advantage #1: It treats the Actual Cause. One of the best advantages that alternative medicine offers is that it heals the body and is designed to actually treat the cause of the pain or disease that has occurred. By understanding and treating the disease, Chiropractors and other alternative medicine professionals are able to work at the root of the problem. Mainstream medicine, on the other hand, tends to treat the symptom that the disease
or pain is causing, not actually treating the cause.
Apex Chiropractic and Wellness is a Boise chiropractor and rehabilitation Center. We specialize in Boise chiropractic treatments, including sports chiropractic and extremity treatment.
Many cases from medical practice provide ample opportunities for using different types of treatment. Undoubtedly, in most cases, the most appropriate option would be to use traditional medicine.
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However, there are cases when patients cannot afford them, and then other treatment methods have to be used. One of them is complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) treatment. According to Lindquist, et al. (2018), “more and more people not only know about complementary therapies but are using them or considering using them” (p. 16). This is a wide range of methods and practices for diagnosing diseases or restoring health that operate outside the mainstream of treatment based on a medical model. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the pros and cons of using these types of treatments in medical practice.
CAM is a very capacious term that includes many areas of treatment. In addition to the practical methods of ethnoscience over the centuries, it includes services offered by unprofessional people who lack in-depth knowledge. Since CAM is an inaccurate concept, it is difficult to indicate its effectiveness. However, in my opinion, it is a valuable addition to traditional treatment methods. Sometimes it turns out to be salvation when academic medicine is helpless. Despite this, often using its methods does the patient more harm than good.
Most CAM treatment methods are based on the assumption that the disease affects a person as a unified whole. Considering this in the context of the general psychophysical state of the patient and environmental conditions, I would use CAM methods to find the source of the disease. On the contrary, academic medicine focuses mainly on a diseased organ, eliminating the direct causes and symptoms of the disease within the framework of clinical procedures. Therefore, CAM has an advantage over classical medicine: it would allow me to treat each patient individually, paying attention to all aspects of his life.
Another advantage of CAM treatment is the active participation of patients. In classical medicine, they would follow the strict instructions given by me as a doctor. Meanwhile, most alternative methods are based on the patients’ activity, their faith in healing, and readiness to change their lifestyle. Unconventional methods are often less aggressive to the body than synthetic drugs. In many cases, using CAM gives the same beneficial effect as using pharmaceuticals without side effects.
However, in addition to this, I think that CAM treatment has its drawbacks. Belcaro (2018) states that “the fact that complementary and alternative medicine is widely used is not a certification” (p. 4). Besides, this type of medicine is not based on scientific research, but on the experience of many generations. Thus, tradition does not make it automatically safe and effective. Given that life expectancy in developed countries has increased thanks to the achievements of academic medicine, it should be assumed that its effectiveness is higher than that of alternative medicine. CAM methods can be ineffective, reduce the effects of pharmacotherapy, and even negatively affect the body. Therefore, in the case of serious diseases, I would resort to them with extreme caution or refuse to use them.
CAM treatment has a significant number of both advantages and disadvantages. Thus, the most important thing is to maintain a rational approach. It means that I would choose specific treatment methods for each patient and correct them on time. This is the only way to achieve the most significant positive effect for the patients’ health using the broadest arsenal of tools created within the different areas of medicine.
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References
Belcaro, G. V. (2018). Complementary, alternative methods and supplementary medicine. World Scientific.
Lindquist, R., Tracy, M. F., & Snyder, M. (2018). Complementary and alternative therapies in nursing. Springer Publishing Company.