React to the following Discussion about “The safety and effectiveness of alternative and complementary medicine.”
The safety and effectiveness of alternative and complementary medicine is a topic of great discussion in today’s literature. More specifically the use of these modalities in different types of cancer patients has been greatly studied because of the unique needs of these patient populations. Due to the complex pharmacological treatment regimens that cancer patients have to adhere to, they often experience major side effects from the medications that they have to take to treat their oncologic conditions. Complementary medicine is often used in these circumstances to help patients manage certain side effects and has been proven to be both safe and effective in appropriate patient cases. For example, a clinical investigation was conducted to observe the effects of complementary medicine on the side effects experienced by patients with breast cancer receiving hormone therapy. All patients participating in this investigation experienced arthralgia and mucosal dryness as side effects from the hormone therapy and in an effort to reduce these side effects they were given sodium selenite, plant enzymes, and lens culinaris lectin as complementary treatments. A statistical reduction in side effects was observed and the investigation demonstrated the benefit of indication-based complementary treatments in breast cancer for the reduction of side effects from the hormone therapy with absolutely no added adverse effects by the complementary treatments themselves (Uhlenbruck et al., 2010). This is just one example of the benefits that complementary treatments can have in specific patient populations. When there is evidence to back up both the safety and effectiveness of such modalities, I believe it is prudent to take them into consideration and use them as resources for our patients with chronic debilitating conditions.
When it comes to the use of holistic and allopathic modalities by our patients, I believe it is our role to appropriately educate them on both the safety and effectiveness of these treatment methods. As a provider, if one absolutely rejects the use of these treatments by the patient it is very possible that the patient will still choose to engage in their use without the clinician’s knowledge and more importantly also without the clinician’s guidance, this would be my biggest concern when it comes to the use of these treatment methods. The building of communication efforts with our patients is essential to the patient-provider relationships that we grow over time and presenting an obstacle to these patients such as our complete denial of a treatment modality they would like to try can be detrimental to that established communication and those long-term relationships that can be so hard to build in the first place. When we accept the patient’s will to use these methods it gives us the opportunity to appropriately guide them in their use in order to hopefully minimize the adverse effects they can have and potentially maximize the positive effects, the use of evidence-based medicine is crucial in our guidance of these patients (Shelley et al., 2009).
References:
1. Uhlenbruck, G., Van Leendert, R., Schneider, B., & Beuth, J. (2010). Reduced side-effects of adjuvant hormone therapy in breast cancer patients by complementary medicine. in vivo, 24(5), 799-802.
2. Shelley, B. M., Sussman, A. L., Williams, R. L., Segal, A. R., & Crabtree, B. F. (2009). ’They don’t ask me so I don’t tell them’: Patient-clinician communication about traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine. The Annals of Family Medicine, 7(2), 139-147.
