Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: Asian medicine is often lumped together, in the west at least, with a number of other therapeutic procedures and labelled as 'complementary or alternative medicine (CAM)'.The use of CAM has increased greatly in recent years, suggesting some dissatisfaction with western medicine in treating the illnesses that blight our lives.Doctors, by and large, take CAM seriously and a few actually recommend some of its therapies to their patients.Most towns have health shops selling a range of CAM remedies and CAM treatment centres flourish.However, there are shortcomings in separating, on the one hand, western medicine and on the other, CAM.Firstly, CAM includes far too many techniques to be treated as an homogenous whole.For example, floral remedies and reflexology do not have much in common.Secondly, the important distinction is not between western medicine and CAM but between medicine that works and that which does not.The ideal situation would be for the sick patient to have access to the beneficial parts of both western medicine and CAM and to be given whatever therapy is relevant to their condition.The criteria by which we judge western medicine are fairly well established and when we go into hospital for treatment, or take a drug, we assume that the procedure has been critically assessed by qualified and independent people.However, even here we should be cautious in our assumptions.According to 'Clinical Evidence', the British Medical Journal's Publishing Group's website, of 2,404 commonly used treatments, only 15 per cent were rated beneficial and supported by good evidence, while 4 7 per cent, the largest proportion, were deemed of unknown effectiveness. 1 On the face of it, the situation for CAM is rather different.In general, the patient has only anecdotal evidence and the assurance 1 http://www.clinicalevidence.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp
Source: Asian Medicine
Author: Anthony Butler
Language: English
Subfield: Complementary and alternative medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4233228583