Review
Alternative therapies, also called unconventional, nontraditional,
complementory, unproven, or holistic, are approaches that
differ from the conventional medical treatments.
The major appeal of alternative treatments to cancer patients
is the promise of cure claimed by the sales people. In fact,
these treatments have not been held to the same standards
of proof of safety and effectiveness as have the conventional
drugs and treatments prescribed by physicians.
Views about alternative cancer therapies vary greatly. There
are firm believers, as well as staunch disbelievers, of these
unconventional therapies. While many of these approaches fall
far short of the results promised by their practioners, some
scientists still believe that some of the alternative treatments
are worthy of serious study. Some of them are even being used
alongside conventional treatments.
A blinded (or masked) clinical trial is a field study of
a drug in which the recipient does not know if he is receiving
the actual drug versus a placebo.
The placebo effect is the measurable or observable effect
on a person or group that has been given a placebo treatment.
Quiz
To test how much you have learned from this unit (Other Therapies),
a true-false type of quiz, including six questions (two questions
at a time in five sets of questions) has been created.
Since the quiz is created as an incentive for learning, rather
than an objective evaluation of learning results, the score
of the quiz will not be captured and will not be recorded.
Feedback to your answer is provided in real-time instantaneously,
so you may select another choice if your first choice is not
the correct one.
Please click here to take
the quiz.
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