Conversations in Complementary and Alternative Medicine


Book Description

Based on 27 interviews with leading experts in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), Conversations in Complementary and Alternative Medicine offers valuable insights and advice on a variety of CAM modalities, including acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, and herbal medicine. Each contributor identifies and answers the most commonly asked questions in their particular CAM specialty, including questions on practice, education, and research issues, and provides readers with important tools for identifying evidence-based practice that can form research questions for future CAM studies. Conversations in Complementary and Alternative Medicine is an essential resource for anyone contemplating a career in CAM or already working in the field.




Voices of Integrative Medicine


Book Description

InnoVision Communications, Encinitas, CA. Text cites interviews and encounters with healers and therapists working in complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine. Discusses spirituality and its role in healing, present and future trends in complementary medicine, and possible integration where conventional and complementary medicine can be merged. (Product description).




The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine


Book Description

At the center of the debate over complementary and alternative medicine--from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to homeopathy and nutritional supplements--is how to scientifically measure the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Fourteen scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, sociology, and cultural and folklore studies examine that debate, and the clash between growing public support and the often hostile stance of clinicians and medical researchers. Proponents and critics have different methodologies and standards of evidence--raising the question of how much pluralism is acceptable in a medical context--particularly in light of differing worldviews and the struggle to define medicine in the modern world. The contributors address both the methodological problems of assessment and the conflicting cultural perspectives at work in a patient's choice of treatment. Sympathetic to CAM, the contributors nonetheless offer careful critiques of its claims, and suggest a variety of ways it can be taken seriously, yet subject to careful scrutiny.




Asymmetrical Conversations


Book Description

Ideas about health are reinforced by institutions and their corresponding practices, such as donning a patient's gown in a hospital or prostrating before a healing shrine. Even though we are socialized into regarding such ideologies as "natural" and unproblematic, we sometimes seek to bypass, circumvent, or even transcend the dominant ideologies of our cultures as they are manifested in the institutions of health care. The contributors to this volume describe such contestations and circumventions of health ideologies, and the blurring of therapeutic boundaries, on the basis of case studies from India, the South Asian Diaspora, and Europe, focusing on relations between body, mind, and spirit in a variety of situations. The result is not always the "live and let live" medical pluralism that is described in the literature.




Complementary and Alternative Therapies for Epilepsy


Book Description

Epilepsy is a difficult illness to control; up to 35% of patients do not respond fully to traditional medical treatments. For this reason, many sufferers choose to rely on or incorporate complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) into their treatment regimens. Written for physicians, knowledgeable laypersons, and other professionals, Complementary and Alternative Therapies for Epilepsy bridges the worlds of traditional medicine and CAM to foster a broader perspective of healthcare for patients. The book respects cultural differences that may incorporate alternative medicine into a medical management program, and encourages patients to safely continue receiving necessary medical treatments. Wherever possible, scientific evidence supports the choice of treatment modalities, as well as the effectiveness of a combined traditional and CAM approach. Readers will find incisive discussions in sections on: Learning to Reduce Seizures Asian, Herbal and Homeopathic Therapies Nutritional Therapies Alternative Medical Therapies Oxygen Therapies Manipulation and Osteopathic Therapies Music, Art, and Pet Therapies From stress and epilepsy, to acupuncture, massage, craniosacral therapies, homeopathy, ketogenic diets, aromatherapy, hypnosis, and more, the book is all-inclusive and enlightening. Additional commentary by the editors provides a critical vantage point from which to interpret the data and viewpoints of the contributors, all experts in the therapies presented. This balanced, scientific approach will appeal to even those most skeptical of alternative therapies, making the book essential for every professional who seeks to provide the broadest range of effective patient care.




Complementary and Alternative Medicine


Book Description

This is the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary book to focus on the ethical challenges of complementary and alternative medicine. It examines the ethical challenges that CAM raises for patients and their physicians, and for patient-physician relationships. The book is written by a multidisciplinary team of CAM ethics and policy analysts, researchers and thought-leaders who present a forward-looking exploration of their subject.




Alternative Medicine


Book Description




Trick or Treatment?


Book Description

Welcome to the world of alternative medicine. Prince Charles is a staunch defender and millions of people swear by it; most UK doctors consider it to be little more than superstition and a waste of money. But how do you know which treatments really heal and which are potentially harmful? Now at last you can find out, thanks to the formidable partnership of Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh. Edzard Ernst is the world's first professor of complementary medicine, based at Exeter University, where he has spent over a decade analysing meticulously the evidence for and against alternative therapies.He is supported in his findings by Simon Singh, the well-known and highly respected science writer of several international bestsellers. Together they have written the definitive book on the subject. It is honest, impartial but hard-hitting, and provides a thorough examination and judgement of more than thirty of the most popular treatments, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic and herbal medicine.In Trick or Treatment? the ultimate verdict on alternative medicine is delivered for the first time with clarity, scientific rigour and absolute authority.




The Healing Gods


Book Description

This book tells the surprising story of how complementary and alternative medicine, CAM, entered biomedical and evangelical Christian mainstreams despite its roots in non-Christian religions and the lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy and safety.




Alternative Medicine


Book Description

In his sixth collection of poetry, the celebrated poet-physician Rafael Campo examines the primal relationship between language, empathy, and healing. As masterfully crafted as they are viscerally powerful, these poems propose voice itself as a kind of therapeutic medium. For all that most ails us, Alternative Medicine offers the balm of song and the salve of the imagination: from the wounds of our stubborn differences of identity, to the pain of alienation in a world of unfeeling technologies, to the shame of the persistent injustices in our society, Campo's poetry displays a deep understanding of hurt as the possibility for healing. Demonstrating an abiding faith in our survival, this stunning, heartfelt book ultimately embraces the great diversity of our ways of knowing and dreaming, of needing and loving, and of living and dying.