Integrative medicine

Integrative medicine deals with the optimal combination of mainstream and complementary medicine. Appropriate complementary medicine involves methods that are not fully explained through current scientific methods, but do show some evidence of efficacy. Indeed, evidence-based medicine identifies some techniques that have been considered part of mainstream medicine, but actually have very little efficacy. One unifying thread is often the quality of the interaction between patient and practitioners.

There is a difference between integrative medicine and the somewhat awkward term, complementary and alternative medicine. As used in the U.S. by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), "alternative" aspect rejects other disciplines. NCCAM also uses the term "whole systems" for approaches to healthcare that reject the use of any other discipline. Integrative medicine does not include alternative medicine, because whole systems, by definition, reject integration.

As the term integrative medicine comes into wider use, its advocates consider it

the very best of conventional medicine and cutting-edge diagnosis and treatment, with appropriate complementary therapies. Whenever possible, it favors the use of low-tech, low-cost interventions. All factors that affect health, wellness, and disease are considered, including the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of a person's life. It brings patients and caregivers into a partnership to achieve the patient's optimal health and healing."

Integrative medicine does assume that all techniques used, mainstream or complementary, will be evidence-based, and with full information sharing to avoid dangerous interactions or missed diagnoses. As in the Johns Hopkins example, the terminology can get confusing, when an integrative center speaks of "alternative programs", which are not synonymous with "alternative medicine".

Integrative medicine may be most useful with chronic disease that can be managed but not cured, and where the goal is to give the optimal quality of life to the patient. In some cases, diseases once quickly lethal can be sufficiently well managed to allow normal life. This may require an interdiciplinary approach to pain management, involving more than the subspecialty of pain medicine. Hospice and palliative medicine is also part of integrative medicine, which recognizes there can be futile care.

Issues in non-integrated care

All too often,patients today see both conventional and CAM practitioners, with the patient perhaps not mentioning one type of therapist to the other. In integrative medicine, there is active consultation among the various practitioners and the patient. Integrative medicine also includes [nursing|nurses]], whose training emphasizes managing chronic diseases (e.g., compliance with monitoring and medicine), encouraging healthy lifestyles, and providing continuity.

Integrative medicine reduces some of the concerns that physicians have with patients who self-refer to practitioners of what are indeed complementary techniques, but which might interact with other treatments if all the prescribers are not aware of everything being done. Indeed, one of the challenges of many primary care physicians is simply to find out all the drugs their patients are taking, prescribed by different physician specialists who do not share information.

While some conventional physicians will reject any complementary method for which they do not know the exact mode of action, integrative medicine assumes teams of mainstream and complementary (but not whole system) practitioners. For example, it is quite common for pain medicine specialists to use complementary methods.

Simply to serve as an example that evidence-based methods can deal with complementary techniques, a 1997 NIH Consensus Conference on Acupuncture found evidence for its use for the nausea of cancer chemotherapy, NIH does put a caveat on all of its consensus statements that are more than five years old:

This statement is more than five years old and is provided solely for historical purposes. Due to the cumulative nature of medical research, new knowledge has inevitably accumulated in this subject area in the time since the statement was initially prepared. Thus some of the material is likely to be out of date, and at worst simply wrong.

Categorizing complementary medicine

To begin a discussion, it is necessary to define the scope of the problem. Two sources provide a starting point.

In a study of the field by a U.K. Parliamentary committee, three groups were defined within the category of CAM. This, however, is not a fully integrative approach, since "conventional" medicine, as a discipline, falls into Group 1:

• Group 1 includes the most organised professions, which specifically include a formal approach to diagnosis.
  • Conventional medicine
  • Osteopathy, as distinct from osteopathic medicine
  • Chiropractic
  • Homeopathy
  • Acupuncture
  • Herbal medicine
• Group 2 contains those therapies that most clearly complement conventional medicine.
• Group 3 cannot be supported unless and until convincing research evidence of efficacy, based upon the results of well designed trials, can be produced.

Certain of the Group 1 disciplines may be practiced in a "classic" manner, which defines them as "whole systems" that do not attempt to be complementary or integrative. Classic practice, including "pure" conventional medicine, is excluded from integrative medicine.

Another model comes from the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Major field and Description	Subfield	Subfield
Whole Medical Systems comprise complete systems of theory and practice. Often, these systems have evolved apart from and earlier than the conventional medical approach used in the United States. These are usually alternative rather than complementary.	Western systems include homeopathy and naturopathy	Non-western systems include classical traditional Chinese medicine and ayurveda
Mind-Body Medicine uses a variety of techniques designed to enhance the mind's capacity to affect bodily function and symptoms. Some of the "still considered CAM" techniques are more and more accepted.	Accepted as mainstream (not strictly CAM) include patient support groups and cognitive-behavioral therapy	Still considered CAM include meditation, visualization, and relaxation (physiology) techniques; eye motion desensitization reprocessing; healing prayer, mental healing, and creative outlets such as art therapy, music therapy and dance
Biologically based practices in CAM use substances found in nature, such as medicinal herbs, diet therapy, pharmacologic doses of vitamins, essential oils, and dietary supplements. An example of an unproven method is using shark cartilage to treat cancer.
Manipulative and Body-Based Practices involve the controlled use of force against parts of the body, or maneuvers that move body parts out of their usual range of motion. These may be used as whole systems or as complementary methods. They include osteopathic manipulation, massage therapy, chiropractic, and methods involving movement or posture instruction.
Energy Medicine breaks into therapies that use forces that are, and are not, detectable with conventional scientific instrumentation.	Bioelectromagnetic-based therapies involve the unconventional use of electromagnetic fields, such as pulsed fields, magnetic fields, or alternating-current or direct-current fields.	Biofield therapies are intended to affect energy fields that purportedly surround and penetrate the human body. These include qi gong (part of traditional Chinese medicine), reiki, and therapeutic touch