People usually use the words “alternative” and “complementary” for any treatment or practice which is out of the main health care or medicine approaches as they mean the same thing, but they are not the same. Each word has a different meaning. If the non-main medical approach is used with the traditional medicine together, then it is said to be “complementary”, but when it is used instead of the traditional medicine, then it is considered to be “alternative” [1]. Today, many people use complementary and alternative health approaches for a variety of diseases or conditions. One of these diseases is Asthma; asthma is a condition that affects the small tubes, which carry air in and out of the lungs. It is a chronic disease causing in a difficulty …show more content…
Asthma accupoints are found on areas like kidney,lung and stomach because Chinese medicine believe that asthma is caused due to illness in these organs[7] .A study has been done by Medici TC1, Grebski E, Wu J, Hinz G, Wüthrich B.to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating asthma, it reveals that there was no therapeutic effects of acupuncture on asthma, because at the end of the study there was no difference recorded between the control group and the group that is treated by acupuncture[8]. Additionally, acupuncture is associated with many risks such as infection because contaminated needles can transmit blood born infections such as AIDS and hepatitis [9]. In medical care point of view, acupuncture may enhance patient’s feeling about the symptoms of asthma this is called placebo-induced symptoms relieve. Drs. Michael Wechsler and Ted Kaptchuk and their team led a research to evaluate the placebo effect of asthma, the result was that patients who was given a fake acupuncture reported that they feel better in term of symptoms, however clinical investigations conducted on those patients show that there was no improvement in patients clinical condition [10]. It appears that the scientifically proven effects of acupuncture in treating asthma is limited to placebo effect and relaxation so traditional drugs is the only way to improve asthma signs, however, acupuncture can be used in combination with traditional medicine to improve the psychological state of patients providing that acupuncture risks,such as contaminated needles, are