Integrative Medicine
Traditional medicine embraces complementary techniques
Look for modern hospitals and medical practices that use a variety of optional techniques to complement patient health and recovery.
The New Look and Feel of Healthcare
Hospitals are beginning to get a new look and feel. An international network of healthcare facilities is combining traditional medicine with methods of treatment such as aromatherapy, massage therapy, and pet and art therapy. At state-of-the-art medical centers, cancer treatments are complemented by massage, music therapy, and family education and counseling, as well as other services that physicians are confident to recommend.
Mind-Body Connection and Health
Today’s health care providers integrate these mindful techniques with conventional medical treatments because they know there is a powerful relationship between the mind, body, spirit and community. The approach, called Integrative Medicine is burgeoning in hospitals and clinics across the country.
Beginning about ten years ago, doctors realized that they would not have to abandon modern scientifically proven cancer treatments in order to get benefits for patients from complementary therapies. They saw that an integrative approach improved quality of life and helped patients tolerate treatments.
As scientific findings reveal the role the mind plays in healing, the medical community is beginning to embrace a new range of treatment options, including many once considered fringe. In medical schools, healthcare clinics, research institutions, and private practices physicians are on the cutting edge of this new approach.
How to Integrate Complementary Healthcare Practices
Unfortunately, when health care providers make a commitment to integrate complementary practices with traditional medicine, they aren’t going to be able to find models easily. They often simply figure out what works in their community.
Patient education is a complementary practice that you should demand. Knowledge about a condition and treatment options gives patients power. Physicians who pay attention to a person's cultural values and lifestyle acknowledge that patients play an important role in their own healing. Physicians should be accepting of whatever will help patients.
Although the conclusion that stress makes you sick is common sense, now there is research to prove the complex biochemical link between stress, the immune system and illness. Brain imaging, molecular biology, cell biology, and physiology are like pieces of a puzzle that have snapped together in ways that were not possible a decade ago.
Evaluation of Integrative Medicine
The National Institutes of Health has established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to conduct scientific research to determine what alternative healing strategies are safe and effective. By evaluating the benefits of complementary treatment in clinical trials, they offer solid evidence to inform physician and patients.
Complementary vs. Alternative Medicine
Don’t confuse complementary and alternative medicine techniques. Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine. An example of a complementary therapy is aromatherapy. Alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine. An example of an alternative therapy is using a special diet to treat cancer instead of undergoing surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy that has been recommended by a conventional doctor.
