CAM101A History And Philosophy Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine

Question: Context: This assessment is aimed at consolidating and developing the students understanding of the philosophy and practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and linking this information to contemporary CAM practice. . By completing this assessment, students develop academic writing skills as well as the ability to effectively summarise information. This assessment allows students to advance their skills in sourcing and identifying reliable and credible references. In their written work students will cite references using the APA 6th edition referencing system. Essay Topic: Choose a CAM modality and identify the main philosophical differences between CAM and biomedicine. Please choose to write about one of the following CAM modalities: .Naturopathy .Western Herbal Medicine Nutritional Medicine In your essay: Introduce the subject and what you will be discussing in your essay Describe the philosophy of your chosen CAM modality Describe the philosophy of biomedicine Describe what is similar and what is different between your chosen CAM modality and biomedicine Conclusion – Provide a concise summary of your key points with a concluding statement. Answer: The term complementary and alternative medicine is often referred to as holistic medicine, complementary healthcare, or natural therapies. It acts as an umbrella under which several therapeutic practices can be grouped (Adams, Andrews, Barnes, Broom & Magin, 2012) .Some individuals regard CAM as something negative. They describe it as non-western, non-conventional, or unorthodox. It is normally treated as something secondary, even in positive terms, which complements modern Western medicine (orthodox). The study outlines the philosophies of both CAM and biomedicine in brief, in addition to explaining the key difference (Adams et al., 2012). Considering what Mehta (2012) said, a group of diverse healthcare systems and medical therapies is what CAM is all about. The therapies are based on explanatory mechanisms and are inconsistent with the biomedical model. Medicine is a science of the human person, as held by CAM systems. Diseases are understood to involve the whole person’s systemic dislocation. Nutritional medicine, Western herbal medicine, and naturopathy are the major CAM modalities, but this study is mainly concerned with naturopathy. Contemporary And Alternative Medicine Vs. Modern Western Medicine Clarke,Black, Stussman, Barnes, & Nahin (2015) believe that laws governing the nature’s higher hierarchy level are restricted by those of its lower levels. The rules governing lower level describe and restrict many of the higher level’s phenomena. The history of our disease understanding helps us to easily view this. Human disease was regarded as a spell or misfortune in pre-modern eras. The exact human body anatomy was the basis of modern Western medicine beginning from 18th century. The concept of illness as organs malfunction (individual lower level) was introduced (Clarke et al., 2015). The pathology object was later scaled down to the cells levels in the next century. As declared by Pizzorno (2013) cellular biology was thus introduced. The path was further pursued to molecules, and later genes. There has been an accomplishment of diseases’ modern scientific understanding. This was facilitated through the reduction of objects from individual level all the way to genetic level. The modern medicine has had a powerful and great methodology, which has been the key to understanding individual illness. At levels lower than the individual for instance, elemental factors can easily be found. Starting from etiology to pathogenesis, many diseases can be explained in terms of molecules, thanks to the above approach. The accomplishment has really been a remarkable one. According to Horneber et al., (2012) reducing a phenomenon on the nature’s higher level to the lower one does not help us understand it. This may be just an illusion. Whenever a patient’s molecules or organs’ malfunctions are rectified, we assume that the illness has been healed and this is certainly false. Even when molecules and organs are mended, patients’ illnesses are not necessarily healed. In the analysis of disease mechanisms and in biomedical sciences, reductionism is quite powerful. In the art of healing, however, it has many defects, the same case in clinical medical practice. It lures people into assumptions, and thus can be very dangerous. For instance, people forget that the illness as the individual’s malady, not genes, is the medical practice subject. Though diagnosed, there are those illnesses that cannot feel the impact of modern medicine. Diseases such as AIDS and advanced simply can never be healed. Looking at numeric and in images, there is well representation of the patient’s conditions on the molecules, cells, and organ levels. In such measures, however, patient suffering is not represented. Its expression is only at the individual level (Horneber et al., 2012). In an effort to search a method to heal their suffering, people have increasingly turned to CAM. The conventional reductionist medicine has a biased attention. Its objective measures are at the levels below the individual; the organ, cell, and molecule levels, thus ignoring the patient’s suffering. For the CAM, Frass et al. (2012) believe that the aim is to attentively cater for the individual as a whole. In contrast to the modern analytical medicine attitude, the complementary and alternative medicine defines itself as an individual patient’s new look. Patients are treated as individuals, not as objective numerical measures collections at levels lower than the individual. The understanding and healing of disease is the main hope of CAM. It is not concerned with objective measures abnormality. The idea is to pay attention to the suffering that an individual in whole is going through. From this perspective, we should revisit the pre-modern medical systems as advised by (Pizzorno, 2013). These systems lack the sophisticated analytical power. Based on phenomenological symptomatology at the individual level, however, they have cultivated intuitive healing and diagnostic methods that are not based on sub-individual pathology. This leads us to the next subtopic-naturopathy. Naturopathy The National Training Package defines the practice and modalities that a practitioner has to embrace to be known as a naturopath (Wardle & Sarris, 2014). In naturopathic philosophy and principles, the practitioner must have some core training. They should be familiar with at least 3 of 4 practice modalities; nutritional medicine, herbal medicine, and either homeopathy or massage. In regard to the whole practice (naturopathy approach), little literature has been documented. A major emerging field is the research on whole practice. It examines the way in which practitioners practice in reality. Naturopaths have been using several therapeutic tools in clinical practice. Counseling, patient education, and lifestyle/dietary advice and assessment are used to accompany these tools. The tools of trade have been the main focus of research to date. The whole practice is, however, not reflected by researching one nutrient or herb. For reasons beyond particular products and procedures, consumers normally prefer CAM practitioners. Some 70 systematic reviews published between 2008 and 2010 were extensively reviewed (Pizzorno, 2013). For all main illnesses and almost every body system, they provided sufficient evidence of the naturopathy benefits. Conclusion This essay offers an insight through which complementary and alternative medicine is approached and appreciated. The paper has packaged the CAM practitioners as kind people with good intentions. With an aim to improve the health of others, they have taken it upon themselves to learn therapeutic methods. There must be a proper training of these practitioners for the realization of these potential benefits. With respect to the evolving evidence body, they must continuously take part in professional education. CAM is mainly used in community and home settings. In this paper, both CAM and biomedicine have been evaluated and the notable differences outlined. There needs to be a way of combining these two to form an integrative medicine. Efforts must be exerted to popularize it among institutional settings, such as residential aged care and even hospitals. These institutions have, nevertheless, displayed some reluctance in the adoption of policies that recognize the shifting consumer practice, thus raising patient safety concerns. References Adams, J., Andrews, G., Barnes, J., Broom, A., & Magin, P. (Eds.). (2012). Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine: an international reader. Macmillan International Higher Education. Clarke, T. C., Black, L. I., Stussman, B. J., Barnes, P. M., & Nahin, R. L. (2015). Trends in the use of complementary health approaches among adults: United States, 2002–2012. National health statistics reports, (79), 1. Frass, M., Strassl, R. P., Friehs, H., Müllner, M., Kundi, M., & Kaye, A. D. (2012). Use and acceptance of complementary and alternative medicine among the general population and medical personnel: a systematic review. The Ochsner Journal, 12(1), 45-56. Horneber, M., Bueschel, G., Dennert, G., Less, D., Ritter, E., & Zwahlen, M. (2012). How many cancer patients use complementary and alternative medicine: a systematic review and metaanalysis. Integrative cancer therapies, 11(3), 187-203. Mehta, D. (2012). Complementary and alternative medicine. In Physicians’ Pathways to Non-Traditional Careers and Leadership Opportunities (pp. 309-314). Springer, New York, NY. Pizzorno, J. E. (2013). Textbook of natural medicine. Elsevier Health Sciences. Wardle, J., & Sarris, J. (2014). Clinical naturopathy: an evidence-based guide to practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.

CAM101A History And Philosophy Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine

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