Evaluation of holistic medicine

Mahesh S. Patel

Social Science & Medicine, 1987, vol. 24, issue 2, 169-175

Abstract: As an increasingly informed public becomes more and more disillusioned withthe failure of scientific medicine to live up to its promises and to fullfll popular expectations, attention has been turning to 'holistic,' 'traditional,' 'alternative' or 'complementary' medicine. Forms of medical treatment such as acupuncture, homeopathy, and ayurvedic medicine have infrequently been rigorously evaluated. This paper reviews the traditional structures of clinical and economic evaluation of health care, and then describes a particular set of specific problems that would be encountered in applying these techniques to 'holistic' medicine under the headings 'reductionism' (bias from excluding certain categories of effects), 'taxonomic difficulties' (problems inherent in the choice of diagnostic criteria), and the 'logical basis for comparison' (procedural difficulties). Various methods for comparing the results of different schools of medical thought are suggested and evaluated.

Keywords: holistic; medicine; traditional; medicine; alternative; medicine; acupuncture; homeopathy; ayurveda; evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
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