Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): A Detailed Review

India, because of its lavish cultural heritage is rich in its traditional knowledge of treatment of ailments in various forms for the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.

India having vast ethnic variability, has different disease prevalence patterns. Therefore an attempt has been made to review the practice of different systems of medicines or CAM.

All other forms of treatments (regarded as complementary or alternative medicine) such as homeopathy, herbal therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, magnet, massage, yoga, naturopathy, mud, aroma, colour and gem therapy have been reviewed in detail for its literature available from the various sources.

CAM in the form of therapies can also be organized into different categories, which provides safer solution to various complications in the utmost gentle manner.

The future prospects of CAM are very promising in India and the need is to study out and implement these systems of medicine in a systemic and planned way.