What is Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM)?
Ask any given number of people what CAM is and you’ll get the same number of answers back. CAM covers such a wide range of potential treatment options - from massage to meditation to magnets…from Essiac to ear candling to exercise…from 714X to COQ10 - there is no clear, simple definition for it.
In Canada, the leading CAM research association is the Canadian Interdisciplinary Network for CAM Research (IN-CAM) which has adopted the definition of complementary and alternative medicine as provided by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in the United States as a working definition:
Complementary and alternative medicine is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.
Complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine. Alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine. The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care and as new approaches to health care emerge.
In North America in the 70’s & 80’s, these therapies were categorized as “unorthodox” and “unconventional”, then “alternative” and recently “complementary and alternative” or “CAM” for short. "Integrative" medicine is now used to describe medical practice that combines the best of conventional and complementary medicine with a patient centered approach.
As highlighted in this brief video, the unconventional becomes the conventional through the trailblazing efforts and commitment of a passionate few.
Conventional or ‘western’ medicine is categorized as allopathic. An allopathic physician practices by a philosophy of medicine that views the physician as an interventionist who attempts to counteract disease signs and symptoms with pharmaceutical or technological approaches. The pharmaceutical or technological treatments used are those that have been established over time and are commonly used by MDs. Many have been well researched and much time and effort is expended to improve these treatments further. This institutionalized medical research is absolutely necessary as our knowledge is ever expanding and the medical fields are becoming increasingly specialized. For example, huge strides have been made in emergency medicine.
Many treatments and practices that were initially considered preposterous and ridiculed when they were first discovered, are now part of allopathic medicine. For instance, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss in mid 19th century Vienna documented that the practice of hand washing by doctors between patients reduced the mortality rate of puerperal fever in one of the Vienna General Hospital’s obstetrics wards from 12.24% to 2.38%. The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed and his work was rejected. At the time, it was said to lack scientific basis and was religious or superstitious.
In 1983 Doctors Barry Marshall & Robin Warren proved that Helicobacter pylori bacteria were responsible for stomach ulcers. This flew in the face of accepted wisdom that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy food and stomach acid. Also, everyone knew that bacteria could not survive in the acidic environment of the gut. The discovery was ridiculed. Dr. Marshall proved his point by experimenting on himself, ingesting the bacteria and developing ulcers, which were then treated with anti-biotics. It has taken many years to change the established medical practice for treating ulcers (see timeline). In 2005, Drs. Marshall & Warren won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work.
There are many other examples of alternative medicine becoming standardized practice over time. It takes special people to think the unthinkable and then have the courage to put it into practice as it often takes a long time for new ideas to be accepted.
