Traditional and Complementary Medicine Methods

Abstract

World Health Organization describes traditional and complementary medicine as “the sum total of the knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health, as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illnesses”. The use of traditional and complementary medicine has a long history. As a result of increasing life expectancy of people, chronic and malignant diseases increases. Because of health care workers can not allocate enough time and the reasons such as avoiding the side effects of drugs, patients have increased interest in traditional and complementary medicine methods. It is predicted that the use of these methods will increase even more over time. To protect people from the harmful effects of these methods and to prevent unauthorized use, a variety of arrangements have been made in Turkey and in the world. For this reason, on October 27, 2014 "Regulations of Traditional and Complementary Medicine Practices" was published. In this regulation, 15 methods are accepted and their usage areas are expressed. These are phytotherapy, mesotherapy, maggot therapy, prolotherapy, cupping therapy, music therapy, hypnotherapy, homeopathy, hirudotherapy, ozone therapy, osteopathy, reflexology, acupuncture, apitherapy and chiropractic. Generally, patients do not tell their physician that they are using one of these methods. No matter what causes people to use these methods, if they use them unconsciously; diagnosis of diseases may be delayed, side effects may occur, or patients may be damaged by persons who are not authorized to perform these methods. For this reason, physicians should be aware of the tendencies of their patients and protect them from misuse by increasing their awareness.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Opinions of Health Professionals and Students on Traditional and Complementary Medicine Practices in Turkey: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Traditional medicine (TM), according to the definition adopted by the WHO, is the sum of the knowledge, skills, and practices used in medicine, whether explainable or not, based on theories, beliefs, and experiences specific to different cultures (Ung et al, 2017;WHO, 2013). Complementary and alternative medicine is defined as the "supporter of modern medicine practices" (Unal and Dagdeviren, 2019;WHO, 2001). In Turkey, the opinion of the Turkish Medical Association that "there is no alternative to medicine" has been effective in the rejection of the nomenclature of "alternative medicine" (Turkish Medical Association, 2017).…”

Stratum-specific health outcome estimation in Pakistan using double goal CART

“…CARTs perform categorization and prediction based on observed data and can be employed for predicting the values of unobserved data. [ 16 ] examined the prediction performance of decision trees like CART and compared the results with those of other tree-based methods. Further [ 17 ], studied the prediction performance of decision trees like CART and a comparison has been also made between various tree-based algorithms.…”

Examination of Complementary Treatment Use of Individuals with Interstitial Cystitis: Descriptive Study

“…According to the definition made by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), it includes "different practices and products applied by trained people, different from the scientific treatments used in conventional medicine" (11). Complementary therapies include phytotherapy, larva therapy, mesotherapy, prolotherapy, music therapy, hypnosis, cupping, homeopathy, ozone therapy, leech therapy, osteopathy, acupuncture, reflexology, chiropractic (12).…”