Pros And Cons Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and healthcare systems, practices and products considered not part of conventional medicine (Department of Veterans Affair, 2007,pg.197). In recent years, patients suffering from chronic rheumatic arthritis have been adopting complementary/alternative medicine to aid managing their painful condition. Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease where the body’s immune system attacks its own healthy tissues. The attack is most common in the joints of the hands and feet and causes redness, pain, swelling and heat in the joint area. Traditional medicine and non-drug treatments are used to relieve pain and swelling. Over the past decade CAM modalities began being used more widely

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 62 percent of adults used some form of complementary and alternative medicine during the past year. Evidence shows that CAM modalities such as acupuncture, diets, herbal medicine, homeopathy, massage and supplements show promise in effectiveness. The toxicity and limited efficacy of current treatment medicine for rheumatoid arthritis has caused patients to turn to CAM in hopes of improving their symptoms. Acupuncture shows to be effective in treating many painful conditions including chronic knee and neck pain. Acupuncture is defined as the insertion of needles into the skin and underlying tissue at certain points for therapeutic purposes (Tam, 2007). These points can be stimulated with lasers, heat, electricity or pressure. Acupuncture is perceived to prevent or adjust the perception of pain while altering physiological functions including pain control for the treatment of certain diseases in the

This trial shows no significant difference between acupuncture and the sham acupuncture treatments in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. So far there has been no beneficial double-blind controlled study proving acupuncture to be effective for this type of chronic pain. One of the problems in the formulation of trials for acupuncture in rheumatoid arthritis is the various definitions of real and fake acupuncture, randomization and selection of sample population. Elimination of bias is important because neither patient nor physician is supposed to know the treatment given. These patients had no history of acupuncture treatment and not familiar with this treatment. In the last assessment patients were asked if they could differentiate between real and fake acupuncture treatments and 48% said yes. Two of the seven studies assessed found no statistical difference between real and fake acupuncture in rheumatoid patients. Lee et al. found that less than 50% of patients reported at least a 75% reduction in pain after four treatments. Four weeks after treatment only 20% continued to have this level of pain. Neither treatment seemed to be beneficial for RA nor a further review showed that acupuncture was not recommended for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthropathy, lupus erythematous and scleroderma. It is surprising to know that acupuncture is effective in treating osteoarthritis,