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More People Using Non-Medical Care
From the September 4, 2001 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine
comes an article with the long title, "Perceptions about
Complementary Therapies Relative to Conventional Therapies among Adults
Who Use Both: Results from a National Survey". The survey
conducted tests for the usage of what the researchers call
"Complementary Medicine." It should be noted that the term
Complementary Medicine (also known as "CAM") usually means
procedures that, in fact, are not medical procedures. The largest
portion of this category of procedures is represented by chiropractic
care.
The study did not separate the different Complementary Medicine
procedures statistically, but the findings were none the less interesting.
Some of the statistics were:
- 79% of patients surveyed perceived the combination of CAM and
conventional care to be superior than either form of care by itself.
- Of those that used CAM services and conventional medical services,
70% saw their conventional provider first, 15% saw their CAM provider
first.
- Of those that used CAM services, 63% to 72% did not disclose that
fact regarding at least one type of CAM service to their conventional
medical provider.
- 81% of respondents reported that they had "total" or
"a lot of" confidence in their CAM provider, while 77% had
the same levels of confidence in their medical providers.
In the same publication one month earlier was an article discussing the
same subject of CAM. In the conclusion of that article some profound
statements were made. "Previously reported analyses of these data
showed that more than one third of the U.S. population was currently using
CAM therapy in the year of the interview (1997). Subsequent analyses of
lifetime use and age at onset showed that 67.6% of respondents had used at
least one CAM therapy in their lifetime." The article ended with,
"Use of CAM therapies by a large proportion of the study sample is
the result of a secular trend that began at least a half century ago. This
trend suggests a continuing demand for CAM therapies that will affect
health care delivery for the foreseeable future.
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