Conventional & alternative medicine

Conventional & alternative medicine

Conventional medicine can be more effective, because it contains traditional methods, which were experienced and have good proven results.

Alternative medicine  describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility (достоверность) and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective. But antibiotics, vaccination and physiotherapy should be used only by special professional medical control.

Antibiotics should not be used frequently and without control. There can be organism resistant response. Vaccination should be carried out according to a specific schedule.

Hypnosis and homeopathy are probably just a placebo, because they are based on self-suggestion, which use the internal reserves of the body. These methods have only commercial interests.

Nowadays, antibiotics, massage and homeopathy are used too much. It is not safe, because people use homeopathy instead of right treatment. Antibiotics are now available for sale. People often use them without a doctor's prescription. This leads to resistance and does not give the desired therapeutic effect. Massage should be done by a competent and professional specialist.

An illness / symptoms

An illness  is defined as a sickness or disease, or to a period of sickness and disease.

A disease of the body or mind (influenza, measles).

Symptoms are feeling of illness or physical or mental change that is caused by a particular disease.

A physical feeling or problem which shows you have a particular illness (a fever, a cough, red spots).

A treatment / a remedy

A treatment  is  medical   attention  given to a  sick  or  injured  person or animal.

Something you do to try and cure an illness or injury (taking antibiotics, doing physiotherapy).

A remedy is a successful way of curing an illness or dealing with a problem or difficulty. It is a medicine, application, or treatment that relieves or cures a disease.

Something that makes you better when you are ill (an aspirin, cough medicine).

Effect / side effects

Effect  is defined as a result of something or the ability to bring about a result.

A change, reaction or result that is caused by something (blood pressure is lower, pain disappears)

Side effects  are secondary and usually adverse effects (as of a drug), called also side reactions.

Other effects a drug has on your body in addition to the main effect of the medicine (usually something negative or unwanted, such as an allergic reaction, weight gain, headaches).

A medicine / a placebo

A medicine is a   substance ,  especially  in the  form  of a  liquid  or a  pill , that is a  treatment  for  illness  or  injury .

A substance used to cure an illness or injury (cough medicine, penicillin).

A   placebo  is a substance with no effects that a  doctor   gives  to a patient  instead  of a drug. Placebos are used when  testing   new  drugs or sometimes when a patient has  imagined  their  illness .

A harmless substance (a sugar pill) given to someone who’s told it’s a real medicine.

Homeopathy is based on the idea of “like cures like”. Homeopaths will treat an illness using substances that, in a healthy person, would produce similar symptoms to those of the illness. For example, the herb arnica is used to treat bruising because, when rubbed onto the skin of a healthy person, it turns the skin purple. Another principle of homeopathy is that the more you dilute a substance in a liquid such as water, the more effective it is – so a treatment of one drop of substance in a thousand drops of water would be less effective as a remedy than a treatment of one drop in a million. These treatments are not addictive and have no side effects, Critics, however, believe they have no effect at all and that a homeopathic “medicine” is nothing more than a placebo.

Discuss these questions about the treatments in the box

acupuncture antibiotics hypnosis massage painkillers physiotherapy surgery vaccinations

What kind of health problems can each treatment be used for?

acupuncture : back pain, headaches, joint pain

antibiotics : infections

hypnosis : to stop smoking, to reduce stress

massage : to reduce stress, to reduce pain

painkillers : headaches and other minor pain

physiotherapy : after surgery or injury

surgery : heart problems, broken bones

vaccinations : to prevent diseases like influenza, mumps, rubella, measles, etc.

Which would you describe as “conventional” medicine? Which are “alternative”?

conventional medicine : antibiotics, painkillers, physiotherapy, surgery, vaccinations

alternative medicine : acupuncture, hypnosis, massage