Alternative Medicine consists of a wide variety of practices, products, and therapies.
Alternative medicine has grown in popularity and is used by a significant percentage of the population in many countries. While it has extensively rebranded itself: from quackery to complementary or integrative medicine – it promotes essentially the same practices.
Alternative medicine is a term that describes medical treatments that are used instead of traditional (mainstream) therapies. Some people also refer to it as “integrative” or “complementary” medicine.
About 40% of adults in the United States say they use some form of alternative medicine.
In some Asian and African countries, up to 80% of the population relies on traditional medicine for their primary health care needs. When adopted outside its traditional culture, traditional medicine is often called alternative medicine. Practices and known as Alternative and/or Traditional Medicines and core disciplines include:
- Acupuncture
- Acupressure
- Asian Medicine
- Chiropractic Medicine
- Energy Therapies
- Reiki
- Magnetic Field Therapy
- Therapeutic “Healing” Touch
- Ethnomedicine
- Ethnobotany
- Exercise Therapies
- Yoga,
- Ti Qi,
- Qi Gong
- Breathing Exercise
- Herbal Medicine
- Ifá
- Indian (Ayurveda) Medicine
- Iranian (Persian) Traditional Medicine
- Islamic Medicine
- Massage Therapies
- Medical Anthropology
- Muti (African Traditional Medicine)
- Natural Remedies
- Nutrition
- Naturopathic Medicine
- Physical Therapy,
- Sport Natural Therapies
- Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
- Traditional Korean Medicine