Complementary medicines commonly used

Patients tend to believe that medications from nature are non-toxic, non-addicted, and non-invasive. Therefore complementary medicines are usually used in common, less severe, and chronic mental disorders such as sleep disorders, neurasthenia, and anxiety disorders. It is also applied in incurable conditions, for example dementias, autism, and schizophrenia, when doctors and families have tried desperately all means and finally turned to complementary medicine as the last hope. 

A second part consists of two chapters covering other somatic interventions, including complementary, alternative, and naturopathic medicine approaches (such as St. John s wort), as well as more aggressive treatments less commonly used in children and adolescents, such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). 

Features common to complementary medicine cults are absence of scientific thinking, naive acceptance of hypotheses, rmcritical acceptance of causation, e.g. reliance on anecdote, assumption that if recovery follows treatment it is due to the treatment, and close attention to the patient s personal feelings. Lack of understanding of how therapeutic effects may be measured is also a prominent feature. It is useful to list some common false beliefs of its practitioners ... 

Often called complementary and alternative medicine, this group of medical practices has also been termed unconventional, unorthodox, unproven, and even quackery. Because these terms have significant negative connotations, terms such as alternative medicine are preferred. Alternative medicine is not one form of medicine, but rather a diverse group of health practices that are outside of what is considered usual or conventional by the medical establishment. Alternative medicine spans the range of practices, from home remedies to manufactured products, from patient self-treatment to care by a skilled practitioner, from efficacious to potentially dangerous. Specific definitions of more common alternative medicine practices used in the United States are listed in Table 1. ... 

On a global basis, acupuncture is one of the most commonly used forms of complementary and alternative medicine. It is used predominantly to alleviate pain, but many other indications have been proposed. Contrary to prevailing public opinion it is not entirely risk free (47). Several review articles have addressed this issue, and it has been pointed out that tissue trauma (for example pneumothorax) and infections (for example hepatitis B) are the most common comphcations of acupuncture (48). Both are rare and both could be avoidable with adequate training and experience of acupuncturists. 

The nine most commonly used complementary medicines that are in use in most of Europe and North America are derived from St. John s Wort, Saw palmetto, Gingko biloba, Black cohosh, glu-cosamine/chondroitin, SAM-e, Ephedra, Ginseng and Kava. Although there is a certain amount of contemporary fashion that seems to govern which products sell best, all have a long tradition in complementary therapy. 

The popular western herbalism discussed in this chapter is one of many philosophical systems of herbal treatment. It is also sometimes described as eclectic, since it has drawn on many other traditions, including the native American and Chinese. Chinese traditional medicine. Ayurvedic (Indian), and Tibetan traditions use complex herbal recipes and nutrition to achieve balance in the ill patient. Although these practices are most commonly found in ethnic populations, they are also becoming popular in some western complementary and alternative circles. 

In the United States, the use of products, including botanicals, thought to fall within the realm of complementary and alternative medicine is very common. It is difficult to obtain reliable estimates of use or to compare many of the current publications in this area because of diverse definitions for categorizing these products (e.g., dietary supplement, food supplement, herbal medicine, natural remedy, traditional medicine, etc.) in both the United States and elsewhere. A recent report on the use of complementary and alternative medicine by U.S. adults in 2002 indicated that approximately 19% of the population used nonvitamin, nonmineral, and natural products, 19% used folk medicine, and 3% used megavitamin therapy in the past 12 months (1). 

Complementary groups on the protein target recognize key features of the ligand. The three-dimensional arrangement of these features is commonly referred to as a pharmacophore. The Medicinal Chemistry Section of lUPAC has published a glossary of terms used in medicinal chemistry that includes an entry for the concept pharmacophore or pharmacophoric pattern. ... 

Purpose The objectives are to encourage recognition and prevention of common morbidity encountered when using complementary and alternative medicine and 2) to review the toxic effect of herbal remedies containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs). 

Experimental Procedure Sensing of the DNA plays an important role in medicine as well as in food production or quality control. It is necessary in all these fields to target specific DNA sequence in the sample to detect the presence of diseases or pathogens. One of the most common ways for sensing of the DNA is by using fluorescence microscopy with fluorescently labeled DNA samples. For a successful biosensing, the DNA probe needs to be immobilized on the surface. It is designed to match the sequence of interest in the tested sample and is fully complementary to that sequence. 

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