Eastern cultures (Chinese culture, for example) have developed medicinal treatments over thousands of years that are just now becoming more accepted in the United States. Those treatments and therapies are usually called complementary or alternative.
When we need medical treatment in the United States, we most often expect to find a doctor who practices traditional medicine, sometimes called allopathic medicine.
This traditional medicine provides for a diagnosis, then treatment using drugs or other therapies that have been developed through observation over time, research studies and clinical trials. Examples are pharmaceutical drugs, surgeries and others.
The NIH now recognizes CAM as another approach to medical treatment. However, CAM has not yet been adopted by most patients or providers in Western cultures like those in the United States, Canada or Europe.
