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Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a broad term that covers a range of healing therapies, such as:
"Complementary and alternative medicine are those practices explicitly used for medical intervention, health promotion, or disease prevention which are not routinely taught at United States medical schools, nor routinely underwritten by third party payers within the existing United States health care system." The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) defines complementary and alternative medicine in a similar way, as "a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine." These definitions of complementary and alternative medicine don't address how the underlying philosophy of these approaches are different from conventional medicine. Generally, complementary and alternative therapies follow these basic principles:
Sources Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide. The Burton Goldberg Group. Tiburon: Future Medical Publishing, 1997. Eisenberg DM et al. "Trends in alternative medicine use in the United States, 1990-1997: results of a follow-up national survey". JAMA. 280.18 (1998):1569-75. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. "What is complementary and alternative medicine?" 2002 NCCAM 3 August 2006 <http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/>. Updated: August 11, 2006 |
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