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Integration of complementary and alternative medicine therapies (CAM) with conventional medicine is occurring in hospitals and physicians offices, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are covering CAM therapies, insurance coverage for CAM is increasing, and integrative medicine centers and clinics are being established, many with close ties to medical schools and teaching hospitals. In determining what care to provide, the goal should be comprehensive care that uses the best scientific evidence available regarding benefits and harm, encourages a focus on healing, recognizes the importance of compassion and caring, emphasizes the centrality of relationship-based care, encourages patients to share in decision making about therapeutic options, and promotes choices in care that can include complementary therapies where appropriate. Numerous approaches to delivering integrative medicine have evolved. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States identifies an urgent need for health systems research that focuses on identifying the elements of these models, the outcomes of care delivered in these models, and whether these models are cost-effective when compared to conventional practice settings. It outlines areas of research in convention and CAM therapies, ways of integrating these therapies, development of curriculum that provides further education to health professionals, and an amendment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act to improve quality, accurate labeling, research into use of supplements, incentives for privately funded research into their efficacy, and consumer protection against all potential hazards.
Stepping back from the immediate demands of policy-making, Mainstreaming Complementary and Alternative Medicine allows a complex and informative picture to emerge of the different social forces at play in the integration of CAM with orthodox medicine. Complementing books that focus solely on practice, it will be relevant reading for all students following health studies or healthcare courses, for medical students and medical and healthcare professionals.
This book examines how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) – as knowledge, philosophy and practice – is constituted by, and transformed through, broader social developments. Shifting the sociological focus away from CAM as a stable entity that elicits perceptions and experiences, chapters explore the forms that CAM takes in different settings, how global social transformations elicit varieties of CAM, and how CAM philosophies and practices are co-produced in the context of social change. Through engagement with frameworks from Science and Technology Studies (STS), CAM is reconceptualised as a set of practices and knowledge-making processes, and opened up to new forms of analysis. Part 1 of the book explores how and why boundaries within CAM and between CAM and other health practices, are being constructed, challenged and changed. Part 2 asks how CAM as material practice is shaped by politics and regulation in a range of national settings. Part 3 examines how evidence is being produced and used in CAM research and practice. Including studies of CAM in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, and North and South America, the volume will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and health practitioners.
Millions of Americans are using complementary and alternative medicine and spending billions of dollars, out-of-pocket, for it. Why? Do the therapies work? Are they safe? Are any covered by insurance? How is the medical profession responding to the growing use of therapies that were only recently thought of as quackery? These are some of the many questions asked and answered in this book. It describes a transformation in the status of alternative medicine within health care. Paving the way toward legitimacy is research currently underway and funded by the National Institutes of Health. This research is proving the safety and efficacy of certain therapies and the harm or inefficacy of others. While some therapies will remain alternative to conventional medicine, others are becoming complementary, and still others are busting the boundaries and contributing to a new approach to health and healing called integrative medicine.
Researching Complementary and Alternative Medicine provides a valuable and timely resource for those looking to understand, initiate and expand CAM research. This collection brings together leading international CAM researchers with backgrounds and expertise in a variety of areas including health social science, qualitative methodology, general practice, health services research and public health. Drawing upon their own research work and experience, the contributors explain and review core methods and research issues pertinent to contemporary CAM and its future development. Topics discussed include: the use and limitation of evidence in CAM research the issues facing practitioners (GPs, therapists, nurses, etc) who wish to conduct research how and why qualitative methods should be combined alongside quantitative methods to help explore CAM how the randomised control trial (RCT) method relates to CAM the future direction of CAM research in terms of public health and policy-related agendas. Researching Complementary and Alternative Medicine is essential reading for students, academics and researchers in CAM, health studies, medicine, nursing, medical sociology and public health. It will also appeal to CAM and allied health practitioners.
The question typically asked about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is whether it works. However, an issue of equal or greater significance is why it is supposed to work. The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America explains how and why CAM entered the American biomedical mainstream and won cultural acceptance, even among evangelical and other theologically conservative Christians, despite its ties to non-Christian religions and the lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy and safety. Before the 1960s, most of the practices Candy Gunther Brown considers-yoga, chiropractic, acupuncture, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, meditation, martial arts, homeopathy, anticancer diets-were dismissed as medically and religiously questionable. These once-suspect health practices gained approval as they were re-categorized as non-religious (though generically spiritual) health-care, fitness, or scientific techniques. Although CAM claims are similar to religious claims, CAM gained cultural legitimacy because people interpret it as science instead of religion. Holistic health care raises ethical and legal questions of informed consent, consumer protection, and religious establishment at the center of biomedical ethics, tort law, and constitutional law. The Healing Gods confronts these issues, getting to the heart of values such as personal autonomy, self-determination, religious equality, and religious voluntarism.
Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.
This practical, readable guide focuses on how to effectively integrate complementary therapies into mainstream primary care. Based on the authors' successful real-world clinical experiences, it offers realistic advice on key issues, appropriate referrals, and treatment options. Patient information sheets and clinical guidance sheets on commonly seen conditions serve as convenient, quick-reference guides. Covers key considerations related to integrating complementary therapies into a primary care practice, such as funding, resources, and legal issues. Presents easy-to-follow flowcharts for clinical decision-making and treatment options. Introduces research models and issues commonly used in complementary medicine. (Product description).
This book explores the historical, social, political and cultural facets of integration between complementary and alternative medicine and nursing/midwifery. It examines the ever-expanding integration in relation to: the role and conceptualization of the patient the role and responsibilities of different professional healthcare providers (nurses, midwives, alternative therapists, etc) the future provision and approach of nursing and midwifery practice the challenges and opportunities currently facing healthcare systems as a result of integration. This innovative book provides the first critical overview of this important field of health research. It is important reading for medical sociologists, nurses and other health professionals - as well as students in these areas - with an interest in complementary and alternative medicine.