How patients balance complementary and orthodox medicine

 Managing chronic illness: how patients integrate and balance orthodox and complementary medicine
Professor George Lewith, University of Southampton (conference organiser)

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is popular with patients especially in chronic conditions.

A study carried out by Professor George Lewith and colleagues (with Sarah Brien as primary investigator), using patients with chronic benign illness for more than twelve months and who had visited a practitioner based CAM at least twice in three months, suggests that patients tend to consistently visit their OM (orthodox medical) doctor to make a diagnosis but will tend to go to a CAM practitioner to help them to cope with conditions such as migraine, IBS, CFS, pain, eczema, musculoskeletal problems.

The range of therapies in the study included, homeopathy, nutritional medicine, acupuncture, herbal medicine, reflexology and Alexander Technique.

Patients want to be in control, tend to be very knowledgeable about their conditions and most want their OM doctor to support their CAM use. In conclusion, ‘patients integrate CAM and OM in identifiably different ways, individualising both approaches to manage their chronic conditions’.

However, to support patients and prevent potential adverse interactions, Professor Lewith argues that ‘open dialogue between patients, OM practitioners and CAM practitioners needs to be improved’.