Complementary and alternative medicine is difficult to describe because it incorporates a very broad and continually changing field. However, this field is defined as a group of distinct medical and health care systems, products, and practices that are not generally regarded as part of traditional or conventional medicine ("What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine?" 2012). In this case, the conventional or traditional medicine is medical practices by clinical doctors, holders of doctor's degrees, and allied health care professionals like registered nurses, physical therapists, and psychologists. Nonetheless, the boundaries between conventional medicine and complementary and alternative medicine are not absolute since particular CAM practices may sometimes become widely accepted.
There is a significant difference between complementary medicine, alternative medicine, and integrative medicine. Complementary medicine is described as the use of CAM in combination with traditional medicine or usual care in order to help minimize pain. On the contrary, alternative medicine is the use of complementary and alternative medicine as a substitute of conventional medicine. Integrative medicine involves combining treatments of CAM and conventional medicine that have high-quality evidence of effectiveness and safety. Therefore, conventional medicine plays a significant role in each of these terms and treatment procedures. In complementary...
In contrast, conventional medicine is used in integrative medicine to provide safe and effective treatment procedures.
In the past few years, Western or modern medicine has developed life-saving antibiotics and surgeries that were improbable about three decades ago. These developments can be attributed to the advances in scientific studies that have been based on stringiest protocols and processes. Generally, Western medicine is based on analysis of these studies and the use of emerging evidence in regular clinical practice. As clinicians become largely dependent on scientific and evidence-based approaches, alternative clinical approaches are rejected unless they contain logical scientific evidence (Solomon, 2006). CAM practices are based on the philosophy that processes are dependent on traditions, folk beliefs, and wisdoms transferred from generation to generation. Therefore, there is a significant difference between CAM and Western medicine since the former focuses on traditional medical practices while the latter focuses on the use of scientific, evidence-based approaches.
There are five domains of CAM therapeutic modalities i.e. natural products, mind and body medicine, manipulative and body-based practices,…
