What is Complementary Alternative Medicine

The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health (MACCAH) has adopted the definition of complementary and alternative medicine developed at a 1997 conference of the United States Office for Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a broad domain of healing resources that encompasses all health systems, modalities, and practices, and their accompanying theories and beliefs, other than those intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society or culture in a given historical period. CAM includes all such practices and ideas self-identified by their users as preventing or treating illness or promoting health and well-being (O’Connor et al, 1997).