Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Older Adults

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Older Adults: Holistic Approaches to Healthy Aging

Author: Elizabeth R. Mackenzie PhD (Editor), Birgit Rakel MD (Editor)
Details info: EPUB, PDF, MOBI, 324 pages, English
Size: 858 KB

The field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is expected to grow tremendously in the next few years. In addition to an increase in the general population, the baby-boomer generation is quickly entering retirement and will likely take advantage of CAM increasingly as it ages.

Although CAM research as applied to aging is just beginning and health professionals receive no special training in CAM and aging, the United States population still continues to employ it. For diagnoses that accompany aging such as cancer, neurological diseases, psychiatric disorders, and physical disabilities, CAM has often been used in addition to or in place of unsuccessful conventional methods of treatment.

This new and up-to-the-minute compendium of reliable and authoritative information on complementary and alternative therapies seeks to provide information that older adults may use as they seek to improve their health and quality of life. Covering dietary means; physical, mental, and spiritual methods of treatment; and various types of therapies, this handbook is the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on complementary and alternative medicine available today.

Brief definition of modality
Anecdotal reports of usefulness
Discussion of scientific evidence for and against modality
List of resources that reader can use to find further information

Art & Music
Massage
Acupuncture
Meditation
Homeopathy
Ayurveda
Aromatherapy

Book Videos

Integrated Health Series Teaching Medical Students 3 (10:35)

ssm.ncl.ac.uk A 2002 survey of US adults 18 years and older conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (CDC) the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine indicated: Many people utilize mainstream medicine for diagnosis and basic information, while turning to alternatives for what they believe to be health-enhancing measures. Studies indicate that alternative approaches are often used in conjunction with conventional medicine.[3] Edzard Ernst wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia that "about half the general population in developed countries use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)."[4] Survey results released in May 2004 by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the United States National Institutes of Health, found that in 2002 62.1% of adults in the country had used some form of CAM in the past 12 months, though this figure drops to 36.0% if prayer specifically for health reasons is excluded.[5] 25% of people who use CAM do so because a medical professional suggested it.[6] Another study suggests a similar figure of 40%.[7] A British telephone survey by the BBC of 1204 adults in 1998 shows that around 20% of adults in Britain had used alternative medicine in the past 12 months.[8] The use of alternative medicine in developed countries appears to be increasing. A 1998 study showed that the use of alternative medicine had risen from 33.8% in 1990 to 42.1% in 1997.[9] In the United Kingdom, a 2000 <b>...</b>