medicine, alternative

Forms of medical treatment that do not use synthetic drugs or surgery in response to the symptoms of a disease, but aim to treat the patient as a whole (see holism). The emphasis is on maintaining health (with diet and exercise) and on dealing with the underlying causes rather than just the symptoms of illness. It may involve the use of herbal remedies and techniques like acupuncture, homeopathy, and chiropractic.

Some alternative treatments are increasingly accepted by orthodox medicine, if only because the well-documented placebo effect implies that treatments that have no scientifically proven activity can help patients, if their belief in the treatment stimulates their own biological defences. However, the absence of enforceable standards in some fields has led to the proliferation of untrained practitioners.