Home > Advice centre > Keeping well > CAM e - k
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
E
Ear Candling or Coning
A cone shaped device inserted in the ear canal sounds risky - and it is. The idea is to use smoke or a burning wick to extract wax from the ear, by creating a low level vacuum which sucks out any wax.
Equine Therapy
As with dolphin therapy, this involves an interaction between human patient and mammal. From simple tension reduction through stroking the horse, equine therapy has grown in popularity and is now often used to help patients with a range of conditions from cerebral palsy to autism. An interesting development is in the States, where a number of equine therapy centres are treating bulimia and anorexia - it is helpful to restore a more accurate self image when you can compare yourself with a horse.
F
Feldenkrais Method
Developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli engineer and expert on judo, a series of movements is designed to enable you to see the way that different parts of the body move more clearly, so that old habits of movement which had been causing problems, can be eliminated.
Flotation
Sensory deprivation as therapy. Based on work done in the 1950s by American psychoanalyst Dr John Lilly into the disorienting effects of sensory deprivation. Achieved by floating in a solution of Epsom salts in a dark room - no more claustrophobic tanks these days.
G
Geopathic Stress
A theory that our health is indirectly affected by environmental elements, from natural phenomena such as underground streams, to man-made objects, like pylons. This is associated with Feng Shui, the oriental philosophy relating to alignment of buildings and their contents to promote good fortune, health and energy.
Gerson Therapy
An extreme sounding 'spiritual' therapy developed by Dr Max Gerson. Claims, without scientific corroboration, to cure cancer, tuberculosis and heart conditions. It involves daily consumption of up to 20lbs of organic fruit and vegetables, mainly juiced, and taking your coffee anally. Therapists warn that it will take 40 - 50 hours a week to follow their prescriptions.
H
Healing
Healing is also known as 'laying on of hands'. It used to be referred to as faith healing - but as it requires no faith on the part of the patient, this term is no longer used. Healers believe that they can channel energy from an external source to effect a cure. There is contradictory evidence - one study apparently shows healers preventing the growth of cancer cells in a laboratory, but a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 found no evidence to suggest that a human energy field could be detected or used.
Hellerwork
A deep massage combined with psychotherapy and body realignment, with the aim of improving posture. It was developed in the United States by Joseph Heller, physicist and first president of the Rolf Institute, and is related to Rolfing (see below).
Herbal Medicine
Traditional herbal remedies actually form the basis for about a quarter of the medicines now used in science-based medicine, and pharmaceutical companies are working on the analysis of many rain forest plants, which may have healing properties we don't yet know about. Aspirin is a well known example of a herbal remedy which is now synthesised and used routinely by orthodox practitioners. The Chinese herbal remedy Artemisia annua has been found to be effective against resistant malaria and could give hope of preventing many of the 800,000 deaths among children from severe malaria each year.
Homeopathy
Perhaps the best established alternative therapy in the western world, homeopathy was first established in the late 18th century by a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann. The underlying principle is that a tiny amount of something that causes the symptoms of your condition, will cure it. Because homeopathy sees a sick person, rather than an illness to be treated, prescribing is complex, with subtle differences between one individual and another resulting in different remedies being proposed. Sceptics say that the tiny dilutions employed in homeopathy are such that it would be impossible for them to achieve any effect, and scientific proof is certainly hard to come by - yet homeopathy is extremely popular, becoming quite widely available in the NHS, and there is a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence as to its efficacy - even in treating animals, who presumably are less prone to the placebo effect.
Horticultural Therapy
How many people say, half jokingly, that their garden keeps them sane? Well, pottering with plants is now recognised as a useful therapy for many people, including drug addicts and the mentally ill.
Hydrotherapy
There was a belief in the late 18th and 19th centuries, that water could dissolve away diseased matter in the body. Nowadays, proponents of hydrotherapy - which is probably more popular in Europe than Britain - claim that it helps with stress, pain relief, fever, fluid retention, constipation, circulation. The baths are aerated, like a Jacuzzi, and use both warm and cold water, depending on the condition being treated.
Hypnotherapy
Approved by the BMA for nearly 50 years, hypnotherapy, during which the patient and therapist interact, unlike hypnosis, is useful for pain relief, to help combat stress, and is used to treat a range of conditions with a psychological aspect, including eating disorders and substance abuse.
I
Iridology
An iridologist will make a diagnosis by studying the coloured part (iris) of the eye. The belief is that, in the early stages of a disease, small changes occur in the iris - however, studies in which iridologists were given pictures of the eyes of people with various illnesses, showed them to be unable to detect these.
J
K
Kinesiology
Developed by an American chiropractor, Dr George Goodheart, in 1964, kinesiology employs a combination of massage, magnets, nutrition and contact points on the body to find and deal with any 'imbalances'. There is no evidence to support its therapeutic value.
Please note that any information provided on this site is offered without guarantees or any acceptance of liability. We do our best to verify accuracy, but are not offering advice. You should consult a suitably qualified medical practitioner before undertaking any treatment.