Health News Alternative Medicine Holistic Therapies
October 1st, 2008Alternative health therapy is becoming more accepted, often replacing conventional treatment. Mainstream medical treatment and alternative or complimentary therapy has become part of integrated treatment and today there is some very high quality scientific verification in safety and efficacy aspects. Alternative therapies provide certain services not available in conventional medicine. The services are Homeopathy, folk medicine, herbal medicine, faith healing, diet fads, chiropractic, ‘new age’ healing, naturopathy, massage, and music therapy and many more. These are used instead of the conventional methods of healing in order to address some underlying disease.
Quality of life and general health improves with alternative health therapies. It relaxes you by reducing your anxiety, stress, depression, sleeplessness and tension. They can even help to reduce the symptoms of cancer, such as pain, feeling sick, breathlessness, constipation, diarrhea, tiredness and poor appetite as well as help to moderate some of the side effects of traditional cancer treatment.
They alleviate pain which could conceal a grave situation and this is a possibility as today they are frequently used with traditional medicine. Some hospitals provide chemotherapy and radiotherapy as part of cancer care; these are conventional cancer treatments and are offered by some social support organizations for free or at a small fee. Several of the people that now have cancer are known to use all of these therapies in order to help support them throughout the stages of cancer and the treatment itself. These therapies are very valuable in that they identify and support spiritual and emotional characteristics and physical features, but they should not be used as the only alternative line of treatment.
For example, Americans are now spending four billion dollars annually on different alternative health products like herbs and vitamins. Studies in 2005 by Tindle, Davies, Phillips and Eisenberg showed that about 72 million American adults use alternative and complementary therapies. Also indicated from these studies is a figure of more than billion per year spent on out-of-pocket for these therapies according to Herman, Craig, & Caspi, 2005.
Nevertheless it is important to find out which particular alternative health therapies offer the most effective treatments for your needs, as well as discover which treatments you feel comfortable with. Individual therapies like reiki and reflexology, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, massage, meditation, acupuncture and aromatherapy have proved beneficial. It is always advisable to check with your doctor before starting with any of the alternative health therapies and you should also remember to check whether any such treatment adapted would have adverse effect on any of the treatment programs which are already being undertaken.
In case you are thinking of using any alternative health therapy along with your contemporary medication then you must talk to you doctor and find about the pros and cons that are related. The treating physician can often recommend and help in acquiring alternative treatments at the clinic or hospital itself or some other provider. Maybe they will be able to recommend some precise practitioners or therapies as more doctors are convinced that in today’s society, complementary medicine has a place. These types of therapies help some people in fighting with the side effects of conventional treatment like anxiety and gives them hope and control over life.




