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Alternative medicine, also known as alternative therapies, lie outside the realm of conventional medicine. An alternative therapy is any intervention that: is not reimbursable by most health insurance providers in the United States, is not well supported by scientific tests establishing safety and effectiveness, and is not taught by most medical schools in the United States. They are also called adjunctive, unconventional, or unorthodox therapies. There are many general areas of alternative medicine. This paper will outline just five of those general areas, and give examples of each. One area of alternative therapy is alternative systems of medical practice.
One example of this kind of alternative therapy is acupuncture. Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese method of relieving pain and treating a variety of diseases by inserting needles into various parts of the body. Insertion of the needles produces a momentary pinching feeling. This feeling quickly disappears and may be replaced by occasional tingling or a sense of numbness, heaviness, or soreness while the needles are in place.
Acupuncture is used to relieve pain and to treat various conditions, including arthritis, asthma, migraine, ulcers, eye diseases, and some mental illnesses. Another example of alternative systems of medical practice is ayurveda. This is a traditional Hindu system of improving health by using herbs, diet, meditation, massage, and yoga to stimulate the body to make its own natural drugs. Strictly speaking, it is not a treatment. Rather, it is an entire medical system whose goal is the prevention of disease through the proper balance of three irreducible principles at work in the body. Ayurveda medicine encompasses a wide range of treatments and lifestyle measures, including dietary recommendations, massage, medicinal herbs, and the meditation and breathing techniques of yoga.
It is designed to bring a persons trisha, or basic metabolic type, into balance. Mind-body interventions is another type of alternative medicine. An example of this includes meditation. Meditation is a deliberate suspension of the stream of a consciousness that usually occupies the mind. Its primary goal is to induce mental tranquillity and physical relaxation. There are many different approaches to meditation, each with its own specialized techniques.
Approaches to meditation fall into three major categories. They are transcendental meditation, mindfulness meditation, and breath meditation. The calming mental exercises of meditation are a proven antidote for stress, tension, anxiety, and panic. Meditation is also a scientifically verified way to reduce high blood pressure and relieve chronic pain. Many people find it helpful for headaches and respiratory problems such as emphysema and asthma. Biofeedback is another example of mind-body interventions.
Biofeedback is a specialized training that allows people to gain control over physiological reactions that are ordinarily unconscious and automatic. It is the use of special devices to convey information about heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, muscle relaxation, and the like to enable a person to learn to consciously control these medically important functions. Biofeedback is not a passive treatment. It requires a persons intensive participation as they learn to control such normally involuntary functions as heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves, skin temperature, muscle A third type of alternative medicine is manual healing methods. An example of one of these methods is chiropractic. Chiropractic is a system of health care that emphasizes the relationship between structure and function in the body.
Doctors of chiropractic believe that good health depends, in part, on the normal alignment of the bodys parts, and that misalignment can be a significant factor in illness. Proper alignment of the spine is considered to be of critical importance because of its central role in the function of the nervous system. Chiropractic can ease pain in the lower back, mid-back, neck, and joints. The pain can eventually subside on its own, but chiropractic ends it immediately. Massage therapy is another example. Massage is the method of manipulating the skin to produce helpful effects on the skin and underlying tissues.
Massage can improve blood circulation, relax muscles, stimulate nerve endings in the skin, and promote a feeling of general well-being. Depending on how the massage is given, its effects can be relaxing or invigorating. It is often used to promote healing of an injury or muscle soreness, Pharmacological and biological treatments is another general area of alternative medicine. An example in this area would be chelation therapy. Which means taking a series of intravenous treatments of the medication EDTA. People do this to help prevent potentially catastrophic complications of heart and artery diseases such as heart attack, stroke, and other problems caused from poor circulation.
Other common reasons people take it include prevention of some of the general health problems associated with aging, and to help remove accumulation of heavy metals from the body. Many people experience a dramatic improvement in blood flow and energy along with a reduction of their symptoms after just a few treatments. Cartilage therapy is another example of these treatments. This therapy is the use of clean and powdered connective tissue, such as collagen, to improve health. One last area of alternative medicine is diet and nutrition in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Orthomolecular medicine is an example of this.
Orthomolecular medicine describes the practice of preventing and treating disease by providing the body with optimal amounts of substances which are natural to the body. The key idea in this medicine is that genetic factors are central not only to the physical characteristics of individuals, but also to their biochemical milieu. Macrobiotic diets are another example of this area of alternative medicine. This is an oriental-style vegetarian diet that is low in fat, emphasizes whole grains and vegetables, and restricts fluids.
These are some of the same dietary principles that have been found to help prevent heart disease. The macrobiotic emphasis on fresh, non-processed foods may prove helpful in dealing with certain food allergies and chemical sensitivities. There are three defining characteristics of alternative therapies. An alternative therapy is ~ Is not well supported by scientific tests establishing safety and effectiveness. ~ Is not taught by most medical schools in the United States. ~ Is not reimbursable by most health insurance providers in the United States. A placebo is a substance that physicians sometimes use as a medicine, even though it contains no active ingredients. A placebo brings out and improvement or even a cure in some people.
They look like real drugs, but most consist of only a sugar or salt solution. A placebo effect is changes in behavior due to expectations that a drug will have some effect. In alternative therapies, the reaction of the person is almost always a placebo effect. They believe that acupuncture will cure them, so subconsciously it does. But it is not the acupuncture that heals them, it is the endorphins that the pituitary gland releases that is really healing them.
The placebo effect is important in alternative medicine though, because without it, no one would believe in and of the alternative therapies. The placebo effect also has an importance in traditional medicine. For instance, a saline injection is 70 % as effective as morphine in reducing pain. Thats why doctors sometimes prescribe placebos. The placebo effect relies on suggestion, but the effect is not entirely imaginary. The body reacts to suggestions in ways that can alter internal activities.
These internal reactions, in turn, can alter behavior. So the placebo effect plays a role in both traditional and alternative medicine. There are many area of alternative medicine. And these areas do bring a lot of help and relief to many people. As time goes on and these alternative therapies are used more and more, they may eventually grow to become traditional therapies. Bibliography:
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