deck_3404318 Flashcards
Allopathy
descriptive name often given to conventional medicine. Allopathy is the treatment of symptoms by opposites.
Apothecary
historical name for a pharmacist, that is, someone who specialized in compounding and distributing medicines and herbs.
Conventional medicine
the medical practices and institutions developed in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that are legally recognized by the state. Central to these practices in teaching hospital, where all the new doctors are included into laboratory science, clinical practice, and allopathic biomedicine. These practices and institutions are now dominant in nearly all parts of the world. Conventional medicine is also referred to as orthodox medicine or allopathic medicine.
CAM
refers to the diagnosis, treatment, and/or prevention that complements mainstream medicine and that satisfies a demand not met by conventional approaches and is not generally reimbursed by health benefit plans. Complementary medicine refers to forms of care that are not in opposition to and often are provided together with conventional medicine.
Convergence
process, which may or may not be occurring, whereby conventional medicine adopts many of the practices of alternative medicine and alternative medicine acts to become more conventional by, for example, seeking to license practitioners and make them subject to training.
Eclectic
healer who combined various practices and beliefs from different schools to form an individualized therapeutic treatment plan
Empirical
describes observations or research that is based on evidence drawn from experience. Such research is, therefore, distinguished from something based only on theoretical knowledge or on some other kind of abstract thinking process.
Holistic
approach to halth that considers all aspects of an individual-physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and lifestyle-as interrelated and must be treated as such
Homeopathy
alternative medical practitioner. Homeopathy is a system of natural medicine that uses micro-doses of natural remedies from the plant, animal, and mineral kingdom to stimulate the body’s self-healing abilities. It uses a holistic approach to treat the body and mind as a totality.
Iatrogenesis
concept popularized by Ivan Illich that refers to any adverse outcome or harm as a result of medical treatment
Integrative Medicine
generally refers to health practitioners with different backgrounds and training working together, although the precise meaning is contested.
Lifestyle choices
decisions people make that are likely to impact on their health, such as diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol, and other drugs. The term implies that people are solely responsible for choosing and changing their lifestyle.
Mesmerism
therapeutic system of hypnosis believed to be induced by animal magnetism. It was devised to Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer
Naturopathic medicine
a form of alternative medicine that uses natural methods and substances, such as nutritional supplements, exercise, and homeopathy, to support the natural power of the body to establish, maintain, and restore health
Nosology
branch of medicine that deals with the classification of diseases
Randomized control trials (RCTs)
a biomedical research procedure used to evaluate the effectiveness of particular medications and therapeutic interventions. Random refers to the equal chance of participants being in the experimental or control group, and trail refers to the experimental nature of the method. It is often mistakenly viewed as the best way to demonstrate causal links between factors under investigation, but its privileges biomedical over social responses to illness.
Risk factors
conditions that are thought to increase an individuals susceptibility to illness or disease, such as abuse of drugs, alcohol, and Poor diet.
Risk society
coined by Ulrich Beck to describe the centrality of risk calculations in people’s lives in western society, whereby the key social problems today are unanticipated hazards, such as the risks of pollution, food poisoning, and environmental degradation.
Social closure
first used by Max Weber to describe the way that power is exercised to exclude outsiders from the privileges of social membership
Social support
support provided to an individual by being part of a network of kin, friends, or colleagues.
Theodicy
explanation of suffering evil and death
Psychoneuroimmunology
a study of the interaction between psychological processes and the body’s nervous and immune systems, using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates a number of scientific and medical disciplines.
