Health dominates the news right now. Insurance concerns, main stream medical practices being put on the news for blatant disregard for basic “health standards”, and whatever the latest scare is (swine flu is currently the daily discussion as of this writing).
Massage is considered Alternative Medicine. Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis
A recent article from the website www.healthnews.com states: American Spending on Alternative Medicine Continues to Skyrocket.
The term “Alternative Medicine” always makes me question, why is it Alternative Medicine?
Was everything once considered alternative medicine?
Did chanting and leeches from centuries ago become classified as main stream medicine or were they alternative medicine?
Here’s part of the problem; Alternative Medicine, according to this article includes Chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, herbal medicine, naturopathy, biofeedback, diet therapy, and even hypnosis.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but a chiropractor goes to school and puts in as many hours as a physician. A diet therapy, biofeedback, or hypnosis professional has varying degrees of education not regulated on a large scale.
Yet all are considered “Alternative Medicine”.
So if hormone therapy is practiced by a physician that shows up on The Oprah show with Suzanne Somers that is considered “non-alternative medicine” and is accepted as standard practice, even though they may claim to just give a shot of this or that, without testing to see what a patient may actually need. You know, the old, “let’s just treat the symptom with a synthetic drug and bill their insurance” system of medicine.
Yet a Chiropractor, like the Las Vegas based Dr. Mark Baxter (www.BaxterHealthCenter.com ) actually spends time discovering the pathways that may be blocked, and finding a “Natural Way” of balancing the patients’ hormones with vitamins or supplements he is considered an alternative medicine practitioner.
Let me give you another example. For a company like Spinal Rehab Solutions, www.SpinalRehabSolutions.com, that provides the most advanced back braces available to durable medical equipment suppliers, orthotic and prosthetic facilities, physical therapists, surgeons, and Chiropractors alike, are they considered alternative some days and standard medical suppliers the next?
From the same article mentioned above: According to Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, “We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from promising and sensible to potentially harmful.” She further explained that there is a critical need for more research into which therapies are effective due to the substantial amount of money consumers are spending on them.
What kind of money are we spending on alternative medicine? In 1997 Americans spent $27 billion on unconventional medicine and by 2007 we spent $34 billion.
In December of 2008 a report from The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was released. They surveyed over 23,000 adults around the country and discovered that over one-third of American adults use alternative medicine.
That same report apparently revealed that pain was the major reason people sought massages and chiropractic care as well as other alternative therapies. In fact, roughly 35 cents of each dollar spent on alternative treatments was with chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, and other practitioners. That equals about $12 billion and represents about one-fourth of what is spent on mainstream physicians.
So when does alternative become mainstream?
Does that mean that the cynical, conspiracy theorists among us that state that current alternative medicine can’t be called mainstream because it cuts out the drug companies (or any other political/business point of view) is touching on the truth?
Will a massage from a massage therapist stay alternative and a massage from a physical therapist be considered conventional for the rest of this century?
Just questions I ask myself as I shake my head at the systems that have been shaken by greed, lack of understanding, political influence and even marketing to the masses.
What do you think about the term alternative medicine and the future of health care in America or around the world for that matter?
This article was contributed by Jim Chianese, a small business marketing expert with a degree in Exercise and Sport Science.
