The role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine(C.A.M.)

Complementary medicine, which is called by some people alternative, naturist, holistic, integrative, etc. has its origins in the ethnoiatry (folk medicine) of different people. American people gave the name of complementary and alternative medicine - C.A.M., which was accepted in Europe too in the last years. The traditional methods have been living in the last decades a real revival, being acknowledged by the World Organization of Health. These methods complete the modern therapeutic arsenal with new valences and possibilities, which next to the allopathic medicine, based on synthesis medicines, supplement medicine nowadays.

The complementary methods “passed the harsh test of time” as the well-known physicist and publicist Arcadie Percek used to say. Many of the complementary methods have a multi-millenary existence and here we mention: ayurveda, the old Indian medicine, which has over 5000 years of existence or acupuncture, which has its origins in China, over 3500 years old, or phytotherapy and apitherapy, which are connected to the beginnings of the human existence on Earth. In the 3^rd millennium we assist at the re-evaluation of the traditional therapeutic methods, which have adapted to the scientific requests of nowadays and were accepted by the medical world.

Which are the most known naturist methods?

The most known naturist methods are:

- phytotherapy

- aromatherapy

- apitherapy

- homeopathy

- dietotherapy

- acupuncture

- ayurveda

- balneotherapy

- manual therapy

- heliotherapy

- melotherapy

- psychotherapy

- etc.

Do the naturist methods represent a fashion in the present therapy? My answer to this question is a firm NO, which I will try to argue. According to an evaluation of OMS, the most used therapeutic method in the world is the Chinese traditional medicine, as there are about 1 billiard and a half of Chinese people. On the second place we find homeopathy, on the third phytotherapy, and only on the forth place we find allopathy. Nobody contests the role of the synthetic medicines in treating incurable diseases, till their apparition in therapeutics, about 150 years ago; this means a very short time in the evolution of the human species. But synthetic medicines have also negative aspects, like:

- they often cause adverse reactions (only in the USA about 100,000 people die yealy because of the adverse reactions of synthetic medicines)

- they are specially for treating certain diseases, less for their prevention (prophylaxis)

- they are expensive, and press the budgets for health, and thus become less accessible in poor countries or in countries in development

- have limits in a series of diseases hardly curable (cancer, AIDS, malaria)

Which is the advantage of complementary methods in opposition to allopathy?

- they have an important role in the prevention of different diseases, so they have a remarkable prophylactic effect

- they do not cause or cause very often adverse reactions

- they can be administrated to a special category of patients (nurslings, pregnant women, nursing mothers, old people), where the synthetic medicines are prohibited

- they are cheaper that synthetic medicines, being thus more accessible to patients

- they can be administrated for a longer period of time to patients with: hypertension, diabetics, rheumatism, etc., without causing dependency; this is extremely important in a world which gets older and older

The Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine wants to sustain patients in choosing the perfect treatment, without secondary effects and at acceptable costs.

 Dr. Rosenberg Ladislau