Medications and Treatments

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The use of prescription and non-prescription drugs continues to rise in our country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to provide advice on the safe use of medicines. They also have developed a national education campaign to provide advice on the safe use of over-the-counter (OTC) pain and fever reducers. Because many OTC medicines for different uses have the same active ingredients, an unintentional overdose is possible.

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) also is rising among the general public and among health care professionals. Women are the primary users of CAM for themselves and their families. A treatment is called complementary when it is used in addition to conventional (or widely accepted and practiced by the medical community) treatments; it is called alternative when it is used instead of conventional treatment. CAM therapies are used in an effort to prevent illness, reduce stress, prevent or reduce side effects and symptoms, or control or cure disease.

Current as of November 2007