Alternative & Complementary Medicine
In the field of healthcare and medicine, the role of alternative and complementary medication is to help individuals obtain healing, minimize pain and obtain maximum health. Therefore, some alternative and complementary medications include allopathic medicine and holistic and complementary medicine. Different patients and health care providers have different prospects of using any approach depending on the benefits, advantages, and disadvantages of medications (Hamed et al., 2020). Alternative medication is the use of those methods that are distinct from the conventional approach. The alternative medication includes the use of Chinese medication, herbs, acupuncture, chiropractic, and homeopathy medications.
The alternative and complementary medication represent those products that are not in the protocol for standardized medical care. For instance, those patients with cancer take these medications to help minimize the side effects of chemotherapy such as fatigue, pain, nausea, and vomiting. The medication also helps to minimize the stress-related symptoms and cancer therapy and trying to see if they can cure the disease. The integrative medicine approach combines CAM with conventional medications and the pharmacodynamics have been revealed to be safer and more effective (Seet et al., 2020). The medication helps to cater for the spiritual, mental, and physical health of the patient. The complimentary medications such as acupuncture aid to minimize the side effect of conventional mediation. The alternative medications that are used for cancer patients include a special diet instead of chemotherapy drugs.
The complementary and alternative medicine includes the mind and body therapies that entails meditation, biofeedback in monitoring the heart rate and blood pressure, hypnosis to promote calmness and openness, yoga, and tai chi which include controlled breathing, and imagery and creative outlets. The biologically targeted practices include vitamins to maintain the body healthy with normal physiology, dietary supplements, and botanicals such as turmeric and cinnamon (Chowdhuri & Kundu, 2020). In addition, examples of body-based and manipulative practice are massage therapy, chiropractic therapy, and reflexology which is the application of pressure to specific body parts.
