The Advantages and Disadvantages of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.替代和补充性药品的优点和缺点
Abstract摘要
In many parts of the world expenditure on complementary and alternative medicine(CAM) is not only significant, but growing rapidly. 世界许多地方在补充和替代性药品（CAM）方面的支出不仅重要，而且发展迅速。 Many complementary and alternative medicine providers seek continued or increased recognition and support for their field. 许多补充和替代性药品的服务者寻求人们对自己的领域的持续或增加的认同和支持。In general, however, increased use of complementary and alternative medicine has not been accompanied by an increase in the quantity, quality and accessibility of clinical evidence to support CAM claims. 然而，普遍看来，补充和替代性药品使用的增加并没有产生支持CAM声明的临床证据的数量、质量和可及性的增加。On the basis of present exploration, this thesis will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of alternative and complementary medicine. 在目前研究的基础上，本文将分析替代和补充医学的优点和缺点。
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a medical term, which means a kind of replacement in medicine methods but rather than part of scientific health care (Prirri, 2011).补充和替代性药品（CAM）是一个医学术语。它是指医学方法上的一种替代，但不是科学保健的一部分。Alternative medicine refers to some kinds of treatment which doctors use to be as therapy to treat patients. Complementary medicine means nonstandard treatments that you use along with standard ones. There are many examples of complementary and alternative medicine therapies, such as, acupuncture, chiropractic and herbal medicines. In modern society, the increasing using of complementary and alternative medicine becomes more and more popular. Complementary and alternative medicine has a lot of advantages which can be shown from clinical trials. Some herbal medicines, manual therapies and using of acupuncture are regarded as strong evidence to claim the useful treatment of complementary and alternative medicine. However, the increased use of complementary and alternative medicine needs more acceptance from the perspective of safety, quality and scientific research. This article will first talk about the advantages, including he natural methods, such as, herbal medicine, reducing the number of prescription drugs and focusing on prevention. Then it will examine and disadvantages of alternative and complementary medicine, including lack of scientific evaluation and insufficient national surveillance systems.
As the first part of the article, it will be argued that the advantages of complementary and alternative medicine. 文章的第一部分，将介绍补充和替代性药品的优势。Firstly, complementary alternative medicine often uses natural methods.首先，补充和替代性药品经常使用自然的方法。 People who prefer using natural products believe that the earth provide everything we need to remain health (Callahan, 2004). For example, Naturopaths use herbal remedies, massage therapists use therapeutic touch to heal, and yogi use breathing patterns, body poses, and meditation to bring comfort and relief to people. Secondly, alternative treatment can reduce the number of prescription drugs people need. Alternative treatment practitioners supply relief without drugs, since they believed that treatment address not only the physical body but also the emotional spiritual health (Fugh-Berman, 1997). For example, acupuncture can relieve pain without taking drugs which have side effect. Finally, complementary and alternative medicine focuses on prevention, like the old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Preventing ill health by using holistic practices and wise lifestyle practices are basic essentials to good health. Many types of alternative medicine encourage patients to have “well visits,” treatments that are focused on preventing disease before it occurs, in addition to being cared for when sick (Ventegodt, Andersen and Merrick, 2003). Complementary therapies aim to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms of disease. Complementary and alternative medicine emphasizes the whole-body care, and practitioners of alternative treatment often offer personal attention which express on emphasis on one-to-one attention.
The following part of the article will point out the disadvantages of CAM. 下面的文章将指出CAM的缺点。Firstly, with the increased use of complementary and alternative medicine, the sufficient evidence of these perspectives on the scientific research, standard of treatment, the safety and quality becomes important elements of complementary and alternative medicine. 第一，随着补充和替代性药品使用的增加，这些观点在科研、待遇标准、安全性和质量方面的足够的证据成为补充和替代性药品的重要组成部分。In order to make the complementary and alternative medicine become a useful and scientific source of health care, a lot of problems have to be solved. For example, the policy, safety, and quality should be considered into the relevant solution (Ventegodt, Andersen and Merrick, 2003). There are different kinds of development of complementary and alternative medicine because of different cultures. Therefor, there is no scientific standard of CAM methods not only about national standard but also about international evaluation (Callahan, 2004). Lack of evaluation of CAM products is the second aspect of disadvantage of complementary and alternative medicine. For example, the use of herbal medicines, there are many factors being likely to affect the treatment ways, and where is no standard of herbal therapy. Moreover, the limited scientific research of CAM shows its unsteady of treatment. On the other hand, the insufficient monitor and evaluation from national surveillance systems cannot be ignorant (Verhoef, Casebeer and Hilsden, 2004). Although the increasing use of CAM has shown people what the effectiveness to patient, the potential danger and unexamined treatment consist of the drawback of CAM. From now on, no one can clearly announce what the side effects.
In conclusion, complementary and alternative medicine shows its greatest potential. 总之，补充和替代性药品显示了其最大的潜力。Complementary and alternative medicine allows patients to manage pain without resorting to prescription drugs that may be addictive or whose side effects pose problems for patients. 补充和替代性药品使患者控制疼痛，而不是诉诸可能会导致上瘾或者其副作用可能对患者造成问题的处方药。However, the scientifical evidence of complementary and alternative treatment is still inadequate. People still doubt the safety and quality of complementary alternative treatment. Moreover, the complementary and alternative medicine faces challenges in education and training (Spencer, 1999). In order to make sure complementary and alternative medicine become scientific and qualified, the training of CAM providers has to be tested. On the other hand, how to ensure the rational use of complementary and alternative medicine should be solved, and what more important is the rational use has many aspects, including: qualification and licensing of providers, proper use of assured quality, good communication between complementary and alternative medicine providers, and provision of scientific information and guidance for the public. Lastly, the realization of how to use complementary and alternative medicine in appropriate way needs to be emphasized.