Complementary and Alternative Medicine

**Semantic type:** Biomedical Occupation or Discipline

**Definition:** A group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. Complementary medicine as being used together with conventional medicine, whereas alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) groups CAM practices into four domains, recognizing there can be some overlap: mind-body medicine; biologically based practices, manipulative and body-based practices, and energy medicine. In addition, NCCAM studies CAM whole medical systems, which cut across all domains.

**Synonyms:** - Alternative Therapy - CAM - CAM - Complementary and Integrative Health - alternative medicine - complementary and alternative medicine - complementary medicine