Sunday, November 30, 2003

Definitions of Alternative, Complementary, Integrative Medicine, Wellness and Holistic Health These definitions are mine, but I think they are consistent with Dr. Andrew Weil and the book Five Steps to Selecting the Best Alternative Medicine by Michael and Mary Morton. Alternative medicine is the most popular term of the five. It means using a remedy INSTEAD of Western medicine, as an "alternative." This would be using energy healing instead of chemotherapy or radiation, massage therapy instead of taking a painkiller. The term itself does not specify the modality, and certainly the world of alternative medicine is broad. Chinese medicine, Indian ayurvedic medicine, massage therapy and all types of body work, nutrition, fitness training, osteopathy, chiropractic, energy healing - all of these potentially fit into the alternative medicine realm. Complementary medicine became fashionable when people realized that the term alternative medicine was quite confrontational to the Western medical doctors. Complementary means something used "as well as" Western medicine. This is the most apologetic term towards Western medicine. All the categories of medicine mentioned above (in alternative medicine) still apply, but the attitude is different. With complementary medicine, you'll always try Western medicine first, then the others. This term seems the strangest to me, because Western medicine is actually the treatment I would seek last, because it is so strong (drugs, surgery, etc.) and has so many bad side effects. I'd try the least intrusive first, then move to Western medicine if that didn't work. Hey, that's just me. Integrative medicine is Andrew Weil's favorite term. This means that we are building systems of medicine that use parts of Western medicine and parts of the others. We weave them together into treatment plans that make sense for a particular patient. Again, all treatments considered "integrative" could also be called "alternative" or "complementary" unless you knew how they were being applied. Integrative medicine seems very sensible to me, being a systems person myself. However, I still have one quibble with it (see below). Another term is wellness. This refers to using the treatments (the same as listed above) but using them to "stay well" rather than "get better." Again, the list of treatments is the same, but the attitude and usage of them is different. Here, the focus is on going to the doctor when you're not sick, and using his advice to stay well. Regular visits to a doctor to get pre-emptive treatments and, obviously, to get reactive treatments when you actually do get sick. I think wellness is a good term to describe what our goal is. In America, we are a long way from seeing "wellness" as a way to use our medical system. Finally, we have holistic health. This term emcompasses all the treatments we mentioned before, but again the attitude differs. Here, the important factor is that we view the whole patient as one person - body, mind and spirit. We focus a lot on the interconnections between body-mind, mind-spirit, spirit-body, etc. We provide integrated treatments that help each part of the patients, and we honor each part. Holistic health, as you probably already know, is the term I prefer. I think the first three (alternative, complementary, integrative) seem apologetic towards Western medicine. They are describing how they will "fit in" with Western medicine. Alternative medicine is "the alternative" to Western medicine. Complementary medicine "complements" and comes after Western medicine. Integrative medicine promises to "integrate" with Western medicine. To me, calling it "holistic health" says that Western medicine will need to "fit in" with our approach and attitude of looking at the whole. That is how I see medicine shaping up. Wellness is a good term, but I think the holistic attitude is more important in the short term than taking the wellness approach. We can move into a holistic mindset more easily and sooner, and then we can use wellness as a noble goal for our future. 1:21:25 AM

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