What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)?
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the term for medical and healthcare systems, products, and practices that are not currently part of standard or conventional medicine. Standard or conventional medicine is medicine as practiced by medical doctors (M.D.'s), doctors of osteopathy (D.O.'s), and allied health professionals, such as registered nurses, psychologists, and physical therapists. [1]
Alternative medicine means treatments that you use instead of standard ones. Complementary medicine means nonstandard treatments that you use along with standard ones. Examples of CAM therapies are accupuncture, chiropractic and herbal remedies. [1]
Some health care providers practice both CAM and conventional medicine. While some scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies--questions such as whether these therapies are safe and whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used.
The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care and as new approaches to health care emerge.
The National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has added four new Centers of Excellence for Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CERCs) to its research centers program.
The new centers will add to knowledge about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches and their potential in treating and preventing diseases and conditions that are common among Americans such as stress-related illnesses, obesity, cancer and other conditions.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2008/nccam-21.htm
[1] Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, MedlinePlus, A Service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/complementaryandalternativemedicine.html