What is alternative, complementary, and integrative medicine?

Abstract

The concept of alternative medicine was created by Western medicine to differentiate conventional medicine from medical practices such as traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, homeopathy, neural therapy, osteopathic and chiropractic medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and indigenous traditional medicine, which also have philosophical, scientific, and therapeutic foundations. Unfortunately, over time, the belief that alternative medicine encompasses all medical practices that are not part of conventional medicine has gained ground, causing many inaccuracies and controversies. Medicine arose from the need for human self-preservation, with health defined as a state of complete well-being and disease as a loss of this state. Over the course of history, various approaches have appeared and some of them have developed into medical systems. Conventional medicine was structured in the West based on existing medical reasoning and focused on modifying disease, resulting in marked conceptual differences with existing medical treatment systems that focused on the individual and on modifying disease processes. All medical systems have had an impact in various social fields. Likewise, trends and strategies aimed at integrating conventional medicine with other medical systems such as electroacupuncture according to Voll, homotoxicology, electromagnetic polar balance, anthroposophy, sintergenetics, and biophotonics have also emerged. It is now considered that the aim of medicine is to integrate and complement knowledge from different medical approaches within the concept of a single medicine. Taking this into account, this paper aims to clarify the concepts of the different forms of medicine, propose some definitions, and offer a definition of alternative, complementary, and integrative medicine.

Keywords

• Medicine
• Alternative Medicine
• Complementary Medicine
• Integrative Medicine