Sure, we have all heard the term “alternative medicine”, but many people do not understand exactly what it is all about and where it came from. Alternative medicine simply refers to medical practices which differ from conventional approaches. Some of the more common forms of alternative medicine include herbal medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic, and naturopathy.

Alternative medicine methods are usually based on philosophies that go against the grain of modern day medicine. Sometimes they incorporate spiritual practices, pre-modern medical traditions, or completely new approaches to the healing process.

Many have found that the best approach is to combine conventional and alternative medicine. When used in conjunction, an individual is able to benefit from the best of both worlds so to speak — using conventional medicine for information and diagnosis, and using alternative medicine for health enhancement.

Alternative medicine is growing in popularity among developed countries. In these areas, access to medicines is restricted by both lack of resources and poverty. As a result, traditional remedies (alternative remedies) often become a form of primary health care.

As health care costs continue to rise, alternative medicine is also picking up steam in the United States. According to a survey done a few years ago of adults ages 18 and up in the U.S., over 74% had used some form of alternative medicine and more than 62% had done so within the past 12 months.

Used properly, alternative medicine methods can be extremely effective in treating a wide range of medical conditions at a very reasonable cost.

By: JP Richardson

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Take the natural route to a better health and life by looking for the qualified holistic and naturopathic medical doctor in town. The holistic or naturopathic doctor that is talked about is the one who has the capability to cure patients with devastating and hard to cure diseases through the unique blend of conventional western medicine and alternative medicine. Getting more particular with these two branches of medicine, holistic doctors are more concerned on dealing with from hard to cure diseases such as heart disease, cancer, HIV or AIDS, high blood pressure, depression, infertility, menopausal symptoms, prostatitis and diabetes. In the treatment procedure they usually use natural and dietary procedure to prove more efficiency in curing their patient’s illness. The other branch of medicine which is the naturopathic medicine mainly specializes in using natural cure and treatment procedures. Doctors under this field uses herbal medicine, nutritional supplements, diet, lifestyle and exercise modifications, natural hormone therapy, intravenous vitamins, minerals and herbs and all other treatments that fall under the natural treatment category. These doctors are regarded as alternative medicine doctor natural health practitioners.

Being an alternative medicine doctor natural health who promotes well being does not need to solely rely on the knowledge and skills that he earned during his study. He has to develop other values such like providing quality time listening to his patients to actually understand the problem and the pain that the patient is suffering from. With good listening skills, he will gain the wisdom to determine the patient’s sickness thus knowing the right and cost effective treatment that the patient could have. The naturopathic doctor is suggested to be consulted in cases of devastating and hard to cure diseases because of its capacity to determine the very root of the disease. Though their particular knowledge about natural treatments and cure they can dig into the problem and get the very cause of the disease whether it is improper nutrition, bad diet or insufficient body mineral supply. The findings and the advice of the naturopathic doctor will be very significant to improve the patient’s treatment procedure and recovery stage.

Just keep an eye on the well known and expert naturopathic doctor or alternative medicine doctor natural health practitioner in your area. It’s best to find the doctor within the town vicinity for consultation and regular check up accessibility and convenience. If you don’t know anyone in your town that specializes in naturopathic medicine, use the internet to locate one. Some naturopathic doctors had their advertisements online. There you will find their complete qualification, educational background, practice experience and other information that makes them excel in the medical world. All you have to do is to ask the internet for their list so that you can immediately make your choice and have your disease cured the natural and cost efficient way.

By: Ian Pennington

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Alternative medicine usually refers to medication or treatment outside the regular western medicine stream. Alternative medicine goes back thousands of years and, in most cases, has been passed down through word of mouth. Most ancient cultures have their own particular healing system. Like humans, animals could also be treated with these systems.

Guidelines for alternative treatments like acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, and holistic medicines have been laid down by the American Veterinary Medical Association. All alternative medicine should be resorted to after consultation with your vet. Remember, natural does not necessarily mean harmless. There are laws in each state as to who can treat an animal legally. Check with the state veterinary medical association to find out what is legal.

There are various treatments available in the United States for pets, including acupuncture. This 3,500-year-old system awakens the body’s own healing processes by stimulating certain points of energy in the body with fine needles. It has been said to have been effective in epilepsy, hip dysphasia, or in the alleviation of pain.

Chiropractic is a system that manipulates and adjusts the spine to restore regular motion to affected joints. There is usually immediate relief, but the pain could come back and more trips could be necessary. With most pets that are not comfortable with hands-on treatments, a gadget called the Activator, introduced a few years ago, allows treatment to be easier on all concerned.

Herbs have been used to cure for centuries. Most animals in the wild use herbs instinctively. Today, a lot of drugs are actually derived from plants, but herbalists believe it is better to take the real thing. Herbs are available in their dried, bottled form in most cities.

Yet another form of treatment that’s quickly gaining popularity is homeopathy. Homeopathic medicines are dilutions of animal products, plants, and chemicals. The more diluted the preparation, the more potent it is said to be. You have to be careful with the diet during treatment. In most cases, processed food should be avoided.

Massage is also useful to improve the immune system. Most pets, however, do not like the feel of strangers’ hands on them.

Whichever system you would like to try for your pet, make sure to inform your vet. Certain medicines could interfere with each other, and systems could be harmful if your pet has certain health conditions. Prevention, here too, is better than cure.

By: Alison Cole

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Alternative Medicine provides services not available through conventional medicine methods, incorporating spiritual, metaphysical, and religious traditions, along with emerging methods of treatment and healing. Alternative Medicines include naturopathy, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, chiropractic, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, and many other therapies and medicines that are designed to restore and maintain good health.

The primary principle of holistic Alternative Medicine is that a pathogen, a virus or bacteria, for instance, is not the cause of illness, but rather that illness is the consequence of the body’s reaction to the pathogen. Naturopathic and holistic Alternative Medicine practitioners treat their patients with methods that alleviate the symptoms of the disease. Various Alternative Medicine methods are effective in treating a wide range of major and minor medical conditions, and research has proven that specific alternative treatments are effective. Research shows that there is a growing demand for Alternative Medicines, and that many conventional physicians support aspects of Alternative Medicine.

Alternative Medicine promotes patient empowerment; psychic and spiritual growth; and mental, emotional, and physical health. Alternative Medicine teaches the positive effects of good nutrition and the intake of supplemental vitamins and minerals, and uses of plants, herbs, and animal and mineral products that treat illness and promote health.

If you are interested in learning more about Alternative Medicine Schools and programs of study, search our site for more in-depth information and resources.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

Copyright 2006 – All Rights Reserved
Michael Bustamante, in association with Media Positive Communications, Inc. for SchoolsGalore.com

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By: Michael Bustamante

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In Part 1 we discussed the fact that alternative medicine
(so called) was being used in ancient times long before
conventional medicine came on the scene. It is interesting
to note that there were not so many diseases plaguing mortals
in those days. What has caused this never-ending increase of
deadly diseases that wreak such havoc on the body today?

If conventional medicine was the answer to health problems,
why have diseases increased, and why are so many people dying
from these devasting illnesses? Why do so many persons seem
to be convinced that alternative medicine made by God do not
have healing virtues as the conventional medicine made by man?

There is also what is called complementary medicine, that is,
other treatment used along with conventional medicine to effect
a cure. However, not all substances categorised as complementary
medicine must be used with conventional medicine to be effective.

For example, aromatherapy is regarded as complementary since
it is used in many cases with conventional therapy. I have had
great results with the use of essential oils in the case of
swollen joints, arthritic pains, nasal and chest congestion,
‘flu and other ailments. No conventional medicine was used
in these cases.

Why is information about cures by alternative medicine often
suppressed even though conventional medicine very often
interferes with the natural process of healing?

People are so coerced to use conventional medicine that they
refuse to even give alternative medicine a chance because
advertisements have such great influence when heard often
enough, that the public is convinced.

Have you ever noticed the way conventional medicine is
advertised? It would seem that every effort is made to down
play the possible negative effects.

The ads begin by distinctly emphasizing the benefits of the
medicines; then with hurried words they are changed to
something like this, “If you have gallbladder problems, or
ulcers, (or other ailment) you shouldn’t take this.”
Then in closing, someone affirms that the benefits have
been personally experienced!

Beware such deception and trickery; your health may be
seriously compromised. I often say to myself, “If this
conventional medicine is likely to affect my stomach, kidneys,
liver, whatever, why should I take it at all when I can use
some form of alternative medicine that is not toxic?”

Many people, so trained to distrust natural remedies and eager
to get well, jump at the announcement of some apparent new
super healing conventional medicine; and, without any
hesitation, embark upon a regimen with the belief that it is
the answer to their problem; Yet, they continue to be sick or
even get worse. In spite of that they keep on ingesting them.

I am of the opinion that if persons are encouraged to use
alternative medicine to treat disease before it develops into
a serious illness, they might very well have but little need
for the administration of conventional medicine such as
chemotherapy, synthetic drugs, and surgery. If the body is
kept in a healthy state, it is not likely that disease will
develop.

Day by day warning signs of an impending illness are being
ignored, then when that illness becomes overwhelming a quick
fix is sought through conventional medicine which,
unfortunately, seldomly delivers the required result.

I just cannot understand why most people will not try natural
remedies. My son, who was diagnosed with an exceedingly high
count of diabetes, was given the conventional treatment of
insulin and told that he would have to use it for the rest of
his life. He decided to try a herb called Gymnema Sylvestre
that is known in India as ‘sugar destroyer’ and, instead of
using sugar, he used the extract of another herb called Stevia.

What a surprise when he tested the level of sugar to discover
that it had drastically dropped! After a few weeks, he
stopped using insulin altogether. This was well over a year
ago and to this day he has not resumed the insulin therapy.
His blood sugar is back to normal and he now uses the natural
treatment only for maintenance.

I am not saying this to suggest that you will have the same
results, or to suggest that you rush out and buy these items.
This is only to support my confidence in natural remedies. If
you have diabetes, you are well advised to consult your doctor.

Very often a simple massage is the answer to a problem. I
personally have not had a headache for many years. There
was a time when I was headache-prone, and got into the habit
of using synthetic medicines to ease the pain, but after I
decided to try natural treatments and medicines, I changed
my diet from eating ‘junk’ foods and tried to stop using those
synthetic headache remedies.

I started to massage my head and shoulders whenever a headache
came on. Then to my delight, I realised that headaches were few
and far apart. Now they are virtually no more a part of my life.

Whenever I sense the feeling that a headache is imminent (which
is exceedingly rare), I just give myself a quick head and
shoulder massage and I am OK again. No more headache remedies
for me, like the ‘Oh-so-famous’ ones that are so often advertised.

I have helped many, many persons to be rid of a headache by just
simply giving them a massage as mentioned above. Many had
headaches lingering for days, and after about 20 minutes of
massage, they miraculously stopped.

Every person should find the time to learn about the natural
treatments that could be taken to protect his/her own body
and prevent or cure diseases. I do, do you? I have studied
and read about hundreds of cures by natural means, and have
experienced some myself.

Think of the many thousands of persons who might have been
alive today if only they had known, and had been encouraged,
to use certain natural remedies to be healed.

It is not the intention of this article to condemn the use of
conventional medicine which plays a wonderful role in the case
of surgery and other traumatic conditions. There have been
countless such cases where, without the administration of
conventional medicine, many persons would not have survived.

However, it is my hope that conventional medicine in the field
of drugs will one day give way to alternative medicine, and
conventional medicine retain its place in the field of surgery
and other traumatic conditions where it cannot be ignored.

Many persons have begun to take charge of their health and have
wisely shifted their preference to alternative medicine with satisfactory results. It is likely that this trend will continue
and alternative medicine will one day regain the recognition it
so rightfully deserves, as greater emphasis will be put on the prevention of disease and maintenance of health by natural means.

A word of caution. If you have decided to try alternative
medicine, be sure to get in touch with a qualified practitioner.

This article is written for information only and is not
intended to suggest treatment of any disease. Information
contained herein is based on my own experience and research I
have done and just want to share with interested persons.
Anyone suffering from a disease is advised to consult a
qualified recognized health care professional for advice.

By: Jem Bacchus

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Alternative medicine schools are educational institutions in which the processes and practices of non-Western medicine are taught and disseminated. This is a valuable addition to the health industry. There are a number of schools in the US, that offer education in various branches of alternative medicine including degree programs in holistic health care, naturopathy, Chinese herbology and medicine, acupuncture, nutrition, clinical counseling, psychology, spiritual psychology, Avurveda and more.

Three the well known alternative schools are Five Branches Institute, College and Clinic of Traditional Chinese Medicine, The University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine an Southwestern College.

Five Branches Institute, College and Clinic of Traditional Chinese Medicine located in Santa Cruz and San Jose, California emphasizes traditional Chinese medical theory and diagnosis, acupuncture, herbology and Western Medicine. They offer a Master’s program as well as Doctoral degrees.

The University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine located in Connecticut awards a Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine to students who complete four years of study. Naturopathic medicine is a system of primary health care that practices prevention, diagnosis and treating conditions of the human mind and body.

Southwestern College in Scottsdale, Arizona creates a holistic approach to learning, counseling and psychology. Based on psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, systemic and transpersonal psychology, each theory is applied to students’ personal transformation and professional development.

The interest in alternative medicine has prompted many medical schools to add complementary alternative medical (CAM) courses to their curriculums. It has become quite apparent that patients are seeing physicians who not only practice conventional medicine, but alternative medicine as well.

By: Elizabeth Morgan

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These are two very different modus operandi in approaching the goal of physical wellness and it is worth taking a look at the differences between the two.

I would argue that each has a valid role and we only get into trouble with them when one or the other tries to perform a role to which it is not suited.

For example, if you are in an automobile accident and your leg is partially severed and your artery is pumping blood, taking vitamins or drinking green tea are quite frankly not going to help very much. If that ever happens to me my first stop I can tell you is going to be neither a nutritionist nor a chiropractor but the nearest casualty department where (I hope) I will be pumped full of anesthetics and stitched back together again pronto. Having survived the immediate life-threatening situation thanks to the good offices of conventional medicine, which excels at that sort of thing, I will then set about a nutritional handling so as to optimize the efficiency with which the body achieves its long-term repair and recovery – and alternative medicine excels at THAT sort of thing.

So let’s have a quick layman’s look at the two modus operandi so one can decide which is the most appropriate for whatever it is one seeks to handle.

Conventional medicine excels in emergency/casualty type care and in dealing with life-threatening situations. To those scenarios it brings a fantastic amount of expertise and wisdom: just watching, for example, some paramedic team bring back to life a drowned child whose heart had stopped beating borders on the witnessing of miracles.

There are times when a quick fix is necessary. If your arteries are so clogged with cholesterol, for example, that if you move too suddenly you could drop dead, then it’s time to take the statins and get the cholesterol out of one’s tubing a.s.a.p. Eating a bowl of salad or a tin of sardines just ain’t gonna cut it. It is a life-threatening situation, so you do whatever you can to fix the guy up and keep him breathing.

Then, when the immediate emergency is over, you can look to your long term handling: a Mediterranean diet and so forth to sort out both the cholesterol problem and the damage done elsewhere in the body by the statins.

Where a necessary quick-fix is concerned there is often a trade-off in which death is averted but at the cost of some damage done to the body by the intervention. Most of us would consider this a fair trade.

The Conventional approach to the treatment of most illnesses, mild or serious, is routinely to hit the condition with drugs or surgery. Here again is a quick-fix even though immanent death is not being averted and drugs in particular that are designed to attack one set of symptoms invariably cause problems and malfunctions in other areas of the body.

Conventional medicine’s approach is to treat symptoms, not the underlying causes. For example, if one’s cholesterol is too high, your doctor will routinely prescribe statin drugs to remove it from the arteries. Very little is done to investigate and discover and understand the reason WHY, for that individual, cholesterol is rising. For example, the reason might be excessive homocysteine levels prompting the body to coat the arteries with a protective layer of cholesterol and homoscysteine – the actual CAUSE of the high cholesterol in this example – could be controlled with B vitamins with no price to pay in terms of side effects. In fact, an overall improvement in health is often achieved because adequate levels of B vitamins will have a whole spectrum of benefits.

Drugs are chemicals that are not part of the body’s evolution and operate on the body essentially as foreign matter. Using again the example of statins to treat cholesterol, these drugs work by blocking the production of cholesterol in the liver. This handles the symptom of excessive cholesterol production but at the price of also blocking the production of a vital enzyme – CoQ10 – that is key to energy production in the muscles.

Their financial value to the manufacturers lies in the very fact that drugs are not naturally occurring substances but invented: being invented they can be patented. The owner of the patent can then market the drug at a high price. Substances such as vitamins on the other hand, occurring in nature, cannot be patented and thus anyone can produce and market them, and that means their pricing must be competitive.

Conventional medicine treats the human body in parts, not as a whole: the departments in medical schools and hospitals tend to be organ-specific and produce doctors highly specialized in one organ or bodily function. This compartmentalization does not reflect how the body and its components function because the body is a highly integrated system of complex interrelations.

The training of conventional medical doctors is based upon “rescue medicine,” thinking. It is perhaps an understandable over-emphasis considering how well conventional medicine has won at that particular game. However, we run into trouble when the quick-fix/rescue type of intervention is extended into long-term treatments. For example, a tranquillizer taken to calm down a person so violently and dangerously agitated they are likely to kill someone in their vicinity, if not themselves, can alleviate the immediate crisis without the side-effects doing too much damage if treatment is of short duration.

But the agitation is a SYMPTOM of some underlying problem. If the tranquilizer is used as a long-term suppressor of symptoms in place of finding and treating the underlying causes, then the damage it does to the body’s delicately interrelated systems will start to become evident. That damage can be serious and can become life threatening in itself.

Meanwhile, the cause of the problem remains in place and unaddressed and prevention of disease receives far less than the emphasis it by rights should receive. Alternative medicine on the other hand approaches medical treatment by placing its focus primarily on finding the CAUSE of a condition or symptom and treating that on the one hand and overall wellness that PREVENTS disease on the other.

In that its treatment of a malady targets restoring optimum function to the interrelated system as a whole, alternative medicine can rarely achieve the quick fix but it also rarely causes the complications engendered by the quick-fix approach.

On the contrary, the overall wellness approach tends to produce a spectrum of benefits broader than the resolution of the particular malfunction that first red-flagged the need for a handling. Again, the use of the Mediterranean diet is an example: its benefits extend beyond the reduction of cholesterol in the arteries to overall liver, kidney and heart health, weight loss, restored energy levels and so on.

Conventional medicine, particularly its drugs with their tendency to set in train further complications requiring treatment, tend to be costly both to the individual pocket and government. The health services of many nations are creaking under the financial burden occasioned by declining health and escalating drugs costs. Alternative medicine on the other hand, by reason of its whole approach, tends to be a far less costly option.

Our societies are at this moment undergoing something of a seismic shift at grass roots levels in their approach to healing as the number of people turning to alternative therapies grows year by year. Nutrition as a science has advanced by leaps and bounds, practices such as chiropractics and kinesiology are increasingly recognized as bona fide therapies and confidence in conventional medicine is in decline, while the drugs manufacturers must work ever harder and more ruthlessly to maintain their market share. Even giant food manufacturing corporations, not hitherto particularly noted for their concern for our physical well being, have jumped on the bandwagon with sometimes hilariously overblown claims for the nutritional content of their products.

This grass roots change has not been reflected yet in the orientation of most general practitioners. So many of them are still slow to direct their patients to alternative therapies and optimum nutrition. They still reach for the prescription pad and send the patient quickly on his way with some drug to nullify a symptom.

Alternative medicine is also notably more accessible to the layman, who can relatively easily learn many of its tenets and therapies for himself or become quite adept on the subject of nutrition. Thus in large measure the layman can gain control over his own destiny so far as his health is concerned. Many a layman, becoming interested in the subject of nutrition, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and so on, is soon dismayed by the realization that he apparently knows more about the subject than his GP!

Why is this culture-lag on the part of doctors happening?

The answer may lie at least in part in the fact that the driving force behind conventional medicine has for a long time been the pharmaceutical industry.

Most medical schools receive considerable funding from an industry that has a vested interest in marketing its medicines. Through this financial influence over the medical schools, plus relentless marketing of their products to doctors in general practice, the pharmaceutical industry has achieved overwhelming influence over conventional medicine ( what is called in the trade, “full spectrum dominance”), creating an ethos that is embraced by both modern doctors and pharmacists, many of whom think of their worth in terms knowing which drug to prescribe for a particular set of symptoms.

There are other factors at play too:

Funding of medical research favours conventional medicine over alternative medicine by a huge margin. For example just 0.08 percent (!) of the British National Health Service research budget is allocated to alternative research and out of $12 billion allocated every year by Congress to the National Institute of Health, a mere $5.4 million (an even smaller 0.054% percent by my reckoning) goes to the Office of Alternative Medicine to investigate the claims of approximately 50 therapies.

This neglect by government of alternative medicine research in favor of conventional drug-based medicine naturally constricts the speed at which the safe and cost effective alternatives can advance in research and the accumulation of expertise. How might nutrition and its allied sciences have flourished had it had the psycho-pharmacy’s funding? As such it is a grave disservice to the citizenry who have every right to expect that government will protect and serve so far as their health is concerned.

Despite this, the field of nutrition for one has still managed to make considerable advances and evolve a level of understanding in many respects in advance of that of conventional medicine.

By: Kieron Mcfadden

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In the last 10 years I have seen several acupuncturists. They were all Chinese who studied their profession in China. All the doctors I have seen thought that conventional and alternative medicine should be combined together, and that eliminating one totally, would be harmful.

Some Alternative Medicine Works, Some Do Not.

many people wonder if it works. My answer is – it depends what treatment you are receiving and how much do you believe in it. Let me ask you this: Does antibiotics works? Does all the pharmaceutical medicine you take works? The matter of fact is that all pharmaceutical medicine MAY fix one problem and MAY also cause another. So by taking it you expose your body to new diseases. Acupuncture, Tai Ci, yoga, meditation and many other alternative methods to heal the body including simply exercise, does work. They work on different parts of the body. One thing is for sure: None of these methods will MAYBE harm your body in any way. You not exposing your self to any diseases, and the only thing you do is helping the body to heal, NATURALLY.

I had to have an operation once and then I went to see my acupuncture doctor for maintenance of my body. After all, it was not a natural process but it had to be done. Because an operation involves opening the body up, thus exposing the insides to bacteria, a patient will be given a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics is a medicine that kills a large range of bacteria in the body. In our body we always have good bacteria that IS in charge oN proper function of our immune system but in some cases we have bad bacteria that causes infection. If not treated, that infection can be deadly. I started taking my antibiotics after that operation and when I came to see my acupuncturist Dr Henry Su I asked him if I should take the antibiotics since it causes damage as well as doing good. Can acupuncture alone treat the bad bacteria in my body and cleanse it in a natural way. His answer was: “You should take your antibiotics until you finish its course but also take the herbs I am giving you. Acupuncture cannot deal with a possible internal infection, for this you need something stronger than acupuncture. There is no contradiction in this case, and we sometimes have to combine traditional and conventional medicine.

Alternative medicine is designed to work slowly on the root of a problem you may have. To properly fix a problem, heal a disease or make any good progress one has to be patient and work on it thoroughly. Thorough work takes time, thorough work also has a solid base to success. There is no quick fix, and there is no instant success. In closing, heal your body naturally over time and enjoy a good healthy life for ever.

By: Roy Gol

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Did you know that there are various practices in alternative medicine that make use of body manipulation and other techniques based on working on certain parts of the body?

Massage is the method by which skin tissues are manipulated with the use of hands or special tools. Chiropractic care is when the joints and other parts of the skeletal system are manipulated. In contrast to these, reflexology is the method of putting pressure on vital points on the feet or hands to heal other parts of the body.

Energy Medicine

What is energy medicine? It is the belief that our body is composed of energy fields that may be utilized to heal body parts that are unwell. Those who treat patients with the use of energy medicine use pressure. They place their hands inside or throughout these energy fields to effect healing. There are several examples of this kind of practice:

Tai Chi makes use of slow, deliberate and gentle movements focusing on concentration and breathing techniques.

Raiki balances energy either from a distance or by laying hands near the patient?s body.

Therapeutic touch is the act of moving hands around the body’s energy fields.

Holistic Medical Methods

These types of healing methods have changed over the years in different parts of the world. Examples of whole medical systems are the following:

Ayurvedic medicine: Originally from India, this type of alternative medical treatment emphasizes a person?s need to be balanced in mind, spirit and body in order to be well.

Chinese medicine: Holds the belief that to be healthy, the body should strike a balance between the two forces of nature – yin and yang.

Before trying out anything, make sure you are completely informed about what the practice and procedure entails.

By: Elizabeth Morgan

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Alternative medicine and alternative therapies are therapeutic practices, which are currently not considered as an integral part of conventional medicine. Conventional medicine is the current mainstream medical system of diagnosis and treatment of disease. However, an increasing desire for wellness, in response to today’s stressful lifestyle and rising incidences of cancer, disease and illness, has led to the rising demand for alternative medicine and therapies. It is true that many people are becoming disenchanted with conventional medicine’s drugs and the approach to healing.

What is the difference between conventional medicine and alternative medicine? In general, conventional medicine tends to focus on the disease and employs techniques to treat it. It views the body as a war zone where battles against invading organisms are fought, and won or lost. It focuses more on techniques, technology, chemical reactions that can be measured, statistically proven and documented. Treatment is on the part of the body that is displaying the symptoms of the illness or disease.

On the other hand, alternative medicine tends to be “holistic”, where an individual’s health is considered as a whole and treatment not just focused on the symptoms. Alternative medicine employ “natural” methods to aid the healing powers of the body to return to a state of health. Treatment is holistic; that is it takes into account every aspect of a patient and not just on the health symptoms that he or she is experiencing.
Contrary to popular belief, alternative medicine has a history longer than conventional medicine. Much of alternative medicine is derived from ancient healing techniques. For instance, the use of herbs is practiced all over the world since a long time ago; whether in India as ayurvedic medicine, in China as traditional Chinese medicine or used as aromatherapy which can be traced back to ancient Egyptian times.

There are a full range of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. They include acupuncture, energy healing, hypnosis, flower essences therapy, EFT, homeopathy, etc – all aimed at restoring the body back to balance and thus helping an individual achieve total wellness.

It would seem that after the above explanations, alternative medicine is superior to conventional medicine. This will not be an accurate view for all health situations. Conventional medicine, does in fact, have a place in health treatment. Conventional medical interventions such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and antibiotics do bring benefits. They can prevent death, pain and give hope to people to walk again, provide instant relief, and also, provide a new functioning organ in place of a diseased and ailing one.

Also, alternative practitioners do not condemn conventional medical practices altogether. Their belief is somewhat different, however. That these conventional medical interventions should not be the first choice of treatment, as it often is. The point is that most tend to seek natural or alternative medicine as the last resort. Seeking holistic treatment as a last ditch for health and life is not a very good idea as alternative medicine takes a long time to show positive healing benefits.

For the general public, I guess it is important to realize that there are more ways than one in the aspect of health. Fortunately, with the advent of the holistic health movement over the last two decades, a growing number of conventional doctors are now recognizing that health is more than the absence of disease. Many more medical doctors practice “integrative” medicine, where they combine research-backed alternative medical treatments with the best of conventional allopathic medicine. This may just be the best way to go. The overall objective to aim in the environment of today and tomorrow is for a higher standard of health; in short, total wellness.

By: Evelyn Lim

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