Social Icons

Featured Posts

Some Basic Facts On Alternative Healing Modalities

Saturday, January 25, 2014

By Eliza Mendoza


Medicine is a constantly changing field. There have been numerous advances made in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in the last few decades. Even as technology takes the field by storm, there are many alternative healing modalities that continue to be practised despite the fact that they lack adequate scientific backing. Some of the commonly used therapies under this category include naturopathy, acupuncture, homeopathy and chiropractic.

Naturopathy claims that the body depends on a type of energy called vital energy for essential processes such as reproduction, digestion, respiration, growth, among others. The good thing about this practice is that it is holistic. It is non invasive and use of drugs is limited. This makes it a very safe option which can be practised almost anywhere.

Homeopathy is a treatment method that has existed on the European continent for many years. In homeopathy, healing is based on the claim that a patient can be cured using a drug that would otherwise cause the same illness in a healthy individual. This is called the law of minimum dose or with the phrase: like cures like. This is not however in line with physicochemical concepts.

The field of complementary medicine emphasizes on the stability of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of health. Yoga is an example of treatment that is designed to strike a balance among all these components. Other examples of treatments that work in the same manner include hypnotherapy, directed imagery and meditation.

The practice of yoga is built on the belief that life is like breath. It is something that you can breathe in through meditation, stretching and exercise. All these activities are said to improve the symptoms associated with various diseases. There is a close relationship between religious beliefs and yoga. The use of prayer and anointing to relieve physical or mental distress, are often incorporated into the practice. As a matter of fact, the practice is closely associated with the Eastern religions such as Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

Majority of assertions on efficacy of alternative healing are not reliable because of the low quality research attached to it. There is also a lot of bias in results that go into publication; only positive results are considered. A person may assume to feel better based only on the fact that there has been some form of intervention. This is technically referred to as the placebo effect.

Ideally, tests are supposed to be done to ensure they are safe before being used on patients, just as it is done for scientific methods. This is because they are equally capable of causing side effects since they are also biologically active. However, according to those administering this kind of treatment no harm has been linked to anything natural. Homeopathy is free of undesired effects since it is under regulation by medical organisations.

Unwanted interactions may occur when alternative healing modalities are used alongside conventional drugs. Examples of therapies in which complementary treatment is used include shark cartilage, insulin potentiation, and oxygen and ozone therapies. Some herbal solutions when used together cancer drugs and radiation can cause lethal drug interactions.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment