title: Perspectives about complementary and alternative medicine in rheumatology.
abstract: Complementary and alternative medical (CAM) treatments are considered nonmainstream therapies. The popularity and widespread usage of CAM reflects the inadequacies of the current understanding and management of rheumatic and musculoskeletal (and other) diseases despite significant progress. Better science in the future will relegate certain CAM therapies to the margins of medicine or to history and perhaps see the adoption of others into mainstream medicine. Despite the recent increased interest in CAM, particularly for rheumatic diseases, few clinically important contributions have emerged thus far.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Saint Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Rosy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rajbhandary
authors.forename: Samir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhangle
authors.forename: Sheetal
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: Deepali
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sen
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Perlman
authors.forename: Richard S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Panush
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D003469:Culture; D014943:Global Health; D041743:Herb-Drug Interactions; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012216:Rheumatic Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome