What is alternative medicine?

A. Alternative Medicine includes any of the various systems of healing or treating disease (such as acupuncture, homeopathy, or herbal medicine) not included in the traditional medical curricula taught in the U.S.  more

Alternative medicine is many things to many people. One may believe it is a system of medical therapy that involves using any modality that is found to be helpful, including those modalities or preventive health care practices, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine, that do not follow generally accepted medical methods that do not come from the realm of standard orthodox medicine. An alternative physician will use both natural and chemical substances as necessary to help relieve the suffering of a patient.  more

A. Alternative Medicine is a general and imprecise term currently accepted to include therapies that work outside the currently conventional and mainstream medical system (e.g. acupuncture, homeopathy, herbs).  more

Alternative Medicine includes any of the various systems of healing or treating disease (such as acupuncture, homeopathy, or herbal medicine) not included in the traditional medical curricula taught in the U.S.  more

Alternative medicine generally refers to practices not typically used in conventional medicine. What's considered alternative medicine changes constantly as more and more treatments undergo rigorous study and are proved to be effective or not. Complementary medicine is thought of as treatments used in addition to the conventional therapies your doctor may prescribe, such as using tai chi or massage in addition to prescription medicine for anxiety. Alternative medicine is generally thought of as being used instead of conventional methods. For example, this might mean seeing a homeopath or naturopath instead of your regular doctor.  more

Alternative medicine is an approach to medical care that focuses on treating the whole person - physical, emotional, and spiritual. It encourages the patient to participate in their own healing. More than a specific technique, it is a philosophy that encompasses a variety of healing modalities including Homeopathy. Many people seek Alternative and Homeopathic approaches because conventional medicine has not worked for them. Their positive experiences, word-of mouth, and other success stories have fueled the strong and growing demand for these treatments in the US and around the world. What is Homeopathy? For over 200 years, this European-based medical specialty has recognized that there is an innate inner healing system inside of each individual which can stimulate health when properly activated. Homeopathy was discovered and formulated by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann in Germany. He did extensive medical research on what symptoms different natural medicines would create in people who were ...  more

Alternative medicine offers a broad-based, proactive approach to promote wellness and healing. It’s a wide-lens view of overall health rather than the narrow, reactive approach that characterizes our current mainstream healthcare system. To better understand the approach of alternative medicine, you must first understand conventional medical treatment. For most Americans, the system has been streamlined to maximize the number of patients a doctor can see in a day. According to one study, doctors spent on average of 17.5 minutes per patient.1 But other studies have shown the time to be more in the vicinity of 7 minutes. Regardless of the exact number of minutes, the point is that the time you get with a doctor can be severely limited. You may find yourself leaving with prescriptions to be filled to manage your symptoms, but never getting rid of the problem. A lot of patients are taking prescriptions they don’t fully understand. And some of these drugs are so new to the market, their ...  more

Alternative medicine is defined as any health practice that takes the place of, or is incompatible with, conventional Western medicine. Distinction must be made between alternative medicine and complementary medicine. Complementary medicine may involve nontraditional medical practices, but is undertaken along with traditional healing approaches. Alternative medicine implies using only nontraditional methods. Alternative medicine includes a broad range of practices. Some healing therapies are based on Ancient Chinese beliefs, like acupuncture and the use of certain herbal compounds. Others focus on Hindu, or Ayurvedic, therapies including diet changes, the practice of yoga, and emphasizing the connection of mind, body, and spirit. Mind, body, and spirit healing is also championed as holistic health, and can be alternative or complementary. Dr. Deepak Chopra, for example, practices medicine in this way, leaning more toward alternative than conventional thinking, although he holds a ...  more

These days alternative medicine seems to be any approaches or techniques used to improve health which are not currently taught in most medical schools. At The Center, we are specialists in certain alternative approaches. These include, but are not limited to, nutritional medicine, ear and body acupuncture, detecting and removing excessive amounts of heavy metals from the body, detecting adverse food reactions and hidden parasites, therapeutic massage, and techniques of mental medicine which positively impact psychoneuroimmunology. Alternative approaches are gaining more favor in the treatment of sustained illness because they work. The interest in alternative approaches to improving health continues to grow. Now more than 40 percent of the adult U.S. population uses alternative therapies.  more

The answer depends largely on who you ask, and sometimes on their interests-a conventional doctor might tell you that alternative medicine is a useless, possibly dangerous waste of money, while an alternative medicine practitioner may say it s the best and only cure for anything that ails you. The truth is somewhere in between, with the simplest answer being that alternative medicine is any healing method not taught in medical school. This encompasses a very broad range of diagnostic methods, dietary and exercise programs, massage techniques and even complete medical systems such as traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, some of which are widely recognized among the conventional medical community as valuable, while others are largely dismissed as anything from wishful thinking to fraud.  more