Alternative Medicine
A growing number of people are turning to alternative medicine to take care of their health needs. The term alternative medicine or alternative health, means to use methods for health and healing that do not rely on drugs, surgery, and other conventional medical procedures for treating illness.Other terms you may have heard are complementary
medicine, integrative medicine, and holistic
medicine. The goal is to treat the "whole person".
We have done extensive research to bring you a series of information products to better inform you about various health conditions and what options you might have. Click on the menu for more information (some of the Alternative Health Guides are still under development).
Here are some of the key principles of
the
American Holistic Medical Association which should guide you in
your quest for the best health information you can get to live a
healthy life:
* Optimal health is the primary goal of holistic medical
practice. It is the conscious pursuit of the highest level of
functioning and balance of the physical, environmental, mental,
emotional, social and spiritual aspects of human experience, resulting
in a dynamic state of being fully alive. This creates a condition of
well-being regardless of the presence or absence of disease.
* Whole Person: Holistic health care practitioners view people
as the unity of body, mind, spirit and the systems in which they
live.
* Prevention and Treatment: Practitioners promote health,
prevent illness and help raise awareness of disease in our lives rather
than merely managing symptoms. A holistic approach relieves symptoms,
modifies contributing factors, and enhances the patient’s life system
to optimize future well-being.
* Integration of Healing Systems: Holistic health care
practitioners embrace a lifetime of learning about all safe and
effective options in diagnosis and treatment. These options come from a
variety of traditions, and are selected in order to best meet the
unique needs of the patient. The realm of choices may include lifestyle
modification and complementary approaches as well as conventional drugs
and surgery.
* Individuality: Health care practitioners focus patient care
on the unique needs and nature of the person who has an illness rather
than the illness that has the person.
The doctor of
the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the
care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of
disease.
Thomas A. Edison