Consumer health awareness booklet: a guide to intelligent decisions for selecting integrative holistic medicine: adding complementary and alternative medicine to science based healthcare

Abstract

The National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) define and describe the “CAM” movement as a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not yet considered to be part of traditional medicine.2 Complementary medicine is used in conjunction with conventional medicine, and alternative medicine is sometimes used in place of traditional western medicine. CAM treatments are often used in addition to and integrated with traditional medical treatments.