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Understanding Holistic Alternative Medicine and What It Offers
Holistic alternative medicine is broadly encompassing that includes natural, alternative, complementary and integrative medicine. It is used in combination with conventional medicine in a fully coordinated approach with the goal of offering the best health care towards stimulating the body’s natural healing potential. In a way, it can be said to be an open-minded approach to diagnosis and treatment that tries to assemble the best of all practices to promote disease prevention and overall wellness.
Holistic healthcare focuses on a healing process that is centered on the whole person's mind, body, and spirit. It is all about lifestyle because the philosophy starts with the everyday choices as one strives to achieve the higher goals of personal wellness. This means that one need to take charge of one’s own health by exploring and adopting life and health enhancing activities. This means commitment as well as discipline as one tries to depart from the old ways that caused all the health problems. Further, this also means finding the healthcare that offers the same integrated and holistic approach to emphasize what one is striving to achieve as personal belief.
The rise in the interest regarding complementary alternative medicine (CAM) by the closing of the twentieth century and its continuous rampage to this day underscores man's renewed belief in everything natural. More and more people are convinced that subscribing to unnatural foods and lifestyle are the basic causes of obesity and many other kinds of disorders. Realistically, the renewed interest is also partly due to the rising costs of treatments and healthcare associated with Western medicine. With natural home ingredients, treatments are made both accessible and affordable. Thus, the commercialization of supplements transforming it into a multi-billion dollar industry runs counter to the basic reasons of alternative medicine.
In pursuit of the genuine goals of holistic alternative medicine, practitioners must teach their patients to take charge of their healing as they focus on preventive medicine. This approach emphasizes the cost-effectiveness of the treatment and prevention of a wide-range of disorders and diseases. Proactive practitioners who can instill in their patients the value of taking control of their life and health are more likely to succeed in their practice.
With the renewed interest in alternative medicine, more and more health professionals are pursuing additional trainings to include alternative medicine. In response to this growing demand, school curricula are being enriched to expand trainings to include holistic alternative medicine. As popularity surges, practitioners and patients alike openly admit to involvement without shame or fear of labels that used to be associated to such practice. In fact, it is so accepted that practices need to be regulated and standardized.
The approaches used on alternative healing are broad and varied which makes it hard to define. An attempt to classify resulted to their categorization into five according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and these are:
- Alternative Medical systems are based on complete systems of theory and practice of holistic medicine and naturopathic medicine. These are manifested by Western medicine, Chinese medicine and Ayurveda medicine.
- Biologically-based therapies are based on use of substances found in nature such as plants and animals as well commercial supplements and products made from natural ingredients.
- Mind-body interventions are anchored on the use of a variety of techniques to enhance the mind’s ability to effect improvement in body functions to promote natural healing. Techniques include psychological therapies, meditation, prayer, mental imagery, chromotherapy, music, and dance therapy among others.
- Manipulative and body-based therapies involve the manipulation of spine, bones, joints and muscles by professional practitioners using their hands or certain devices. These methods may include chiropractic, osteopathic manipulation, and massage therapy.
- Energy therapies involve the unconventional use of electromagnetic fields, such as pulsed fields, magnetic fields, or direct current fields. This is based applying pressure, manipulating or by placing hands in or through these fields. These are practiced in Qigong, reiki and healing touch.
As complementary, integrative or holistic alternative medicine becomes more accepted, the distinctions between it and Western medicine will get clearer. Emergencies are still catered by Western or allopathic medicine but recuperation and healing can be fostered using alternative healthcare. Healing takes more than curing the symptoms; it is not just about a damaged body but also an injured mind and spirit. This is what holistic medicine is all about.
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