Integration of complementary and alternative medicine therapies (CAM) with conventional medicine is occurring in hospitals and physicians offices, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are covering CAM therapies, insurance coverage for CAM is increasing, and integrative medicine centers and clinics are being established, many with close ties to medical schools and teaching hospitals. In determining what care to provide, the goal should be comprehensive care that uses the best scientific evidence available regarding benefits and harm, encourages a focus on healing, recognizes the importance of compassion and caring, emphasizes the centrality of relationship-based care, encourages patients to share in decision making about therapeutic options, and promotes choices in care that can include complementary therapies where appropriate. Numerous approaches to delivering integrative medicine have evolved. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States identifies an urgent need for health systems research that focuses on identifying the elements of these models, the outcomes of care delivered in these models, and whether these models are cost-effective when compared to conventional practice settings. It outlines areas of research in convention and CAM therapies, ways of integrating these therapies, development of curriculum that provides further education to health professionals, and an amendment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act to improve quality, accurate labeling, research into use of supplements, incentives for privately funded research into their efficacy, and consumer protection against all potential hazards.

Integrating complementary treatment options with traditional veterinary practice is a growing trend in veterinary medicine. Veterinarians and clients alike have an interest in expanding treatment options to include alternative approaches such as Western and Chinese Herbal Medicine, Acupuncture, Nano-Pharmacology, Homotoxicology, and Therapeutic Nutrition along with conventional medicine. Integrating Complementary Medicine into Veterinary Practice introduces and familiarizes veterinarians with the terminology and procedures of these complementary treatment modalities in a traditional clinical format that facilitates the easy integration of these methods into established veterinary practices.

Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.

This practical, readable guide focuses on how to effectively integrate complementary therapies into mainstream primary care. Based on the authors' successful real-world clinical experiences, it offers realistic advice on key issues, appropriate referrals, and treatment options. Patient information sheets and clinical guidance sheets on commonly seen conditions serve as convenient, quick-reference guides. Covers key considerations related to integrating complementary therapies into a primary care practice, such as funding, resources, and legal issues. Presents easy-to-follow flowcharts for clinical decision-making and treatment options. Introduces research models and issues commonly used in complementary medicine. (Product description).

The best evidence-based guide to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for practicing physicians! This new resource provides the comprehensive guidance on CAM therapies physicians need to responsibly counsel their patients and integrate these techniques into their own practices. Features:

Explores the legal issues that health care providers, institutions, and regulators confront as they contemplate integrating complementary and alternative medicine into mainstream U.S. health care. A third of all Americans use complementary and alternative medicine—including chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, nutritional and herbal treatments, and massage therapy—even when their insurance does not cover it and they have to pay for such treatments themselves. Nearly a third of U.S. medical schools offer courses on complementary and alternative therapies. Congress has created an Office of Alternative Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, and federal and state lawmakers have introduced legislation authorizing widespread use of such therapies. These institutional and legislative developments, argues Michael H. Cohen, express a paradigm shift to a broader, more inclusive vision of health care than conventional medicine admits. Cohen explores the legal issues that health care providers (both conventional and alternative), institutions, and regulators confront as they contemplate integrating complementary and alternative medicine into mainstream U.S. health care. Challenging traditional ways of thinking about health, disease, and the role of law in regulating health, Cohen begins by defining complementary and alternative medicine and then places the regulation of orthodox and alternative health care in historical context. He next examines the legal ramifications of complementary and alternative medicine, including state medical licensing laws, legislative limitations on authorized practice, malpractice liability, food and drug laws, professional disciplinary issues, and third-party reimbursement. The final chapter provides a framework for thinking about the possible evolution of the regulatory structure. This book is the first to set forth the emerging moral and legal authority on which the safe and effective practice of alternative health care can rest. It further suggests how regulatory structures might develop to support a comprehensive, holistic, and balanced approach to health, one that permits integration of orthodox medicine with complementary and alternative medicine, while continuing to protect patients from fraudulent and dangerous treatments.

This book examines how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) – as knowledge, philosophy and practice – is constituted by, and transformed through, broader social developments. Shifting the sociological focus away from CAM as a stable entity that elicits perceptions and experiences, chapters explore the forms that CAM takes in different settings, how global social transformations elicit varieties of CAM, and how CAM philosophies and practices are co-produced in the context of social change. Through engagement with frameworks from Science and Technology Studies (STS), CAM is reconceptualised as a set of practices and knowledge-making processes, and opened up to new forms of analysis. Part 1 of the book explores how and why boundaries within CAM and between CAM and other health practices, are being constructed, challenged and changed. Part 2 asks how CAM as material practice is shaped by politics and regulation in a range of national settings. Part 3 examines how evidence is being produced and used in CAM research and practice. Including studies of CAM in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, and North and South America, the volume will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and health practitioners.

This first-of-its-kind book describes the roles of conventional medicine, complementary therapies, and natural alternative therapies in the treatment of gynecological disorders. The book gives practitioners much-needed information on how complementary and alternative therapies work and how they interact with conventional medicines. The chapters are organized by disease and each includes information on etiology, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, the conventional therapy (drug, procedure, etc.), complementary therapy (acupuncture, chiropractic and manipulative therapy, biofeedback, etc.), and alternative therapy (nutrition, herbal, homeopathy). The sections on complementary and alternative therapies explain what the therapies are and describe the postulated mechanisms of action.

"Western Medicine", "Alternative Medicine", "Complementary Medicine", "Holistic Medicine", and "Natural Medicine." There is really only one "medicine" that heals and puts the whole patient, not the disease, at the center of care: Integrated Medicine. This practice integrates all modalities of healing to produce not merely a medical cure, but a deeper healing of the patient on his or her own terms. The Clinical Practice of Complementary, Alternative, and Western Medicine is a scientifically based text that informs and leads the practitioner easily through the maze of alternative therapies. Unlike other books that address the different alternative modalities, this text integrates homeopathy, acupuncture, chinese herbology, western herbology, and clinical nutrition, then combines them with traditional medicine. The author explains the new paradigm of patient-centered and Integrated Medicine and includes an extensive section on the physical underpinnings of this new paradigm, a paradigm that employs thermodynamics, non linear dynamics, chaos theory, and fractal geometry in an easy to understand discourse. The book incorporates the author's fundamental training in the alternative modalities and his ten years of clinical practice, a practice in which multiple integrated modalities of healing were utilized in the healing of over 10,000 patients. The Clinical Practice of Complementary, Alternative, and Western Medicine is a tremendously valuable reference for practitioners who want to learn about and practice alternative therapies and those who want to be more informed about what their patients may be doing and taking, and the influences those self-administered therapies may be having on their care.