Investing in Research
Mind-Body Medicine
Goals
- Identify the common and specific features of widely used mind-body medicine practices.
- Discover means of enhancing and accelerating the healing process beyond the effects provided by conventional medicine.
- Explore the value of cam therapies to reduce the burden of stress-related chronic illnesses.
- Explore the ability of cam therapies to enhance resilience, positive affect, and coping in order to improve health and well-being, prevent or slow disease progression, and treat diseases and disorders and their symptoms.
Biologically Based Practices
Goals
- Verify and define the composition of botanicals.
- Determine the mechanisms underlying the biological actions of selected cam products and diets.
- Determine the pharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic properties of selected cam products.
- Ensure the safety of selected cam products and practices.
- Establish the efficacy of selected biologically based practices to maintain health, prevent disease, and treat conditions of public health importance.
Manipulative and Body-Based Practices
Goals
- Elucidate mechanisms of action operative in manipulative and body-based practices
- Determine the disorders and states of wellness for which selected manipulative and body-based practices may offer meaningful benefits and specify the optimal circumstances under which the chosen manipulative and body-based practices are performed
- Study manipulative and body-based practices to determine their potential therapeutic or wellness benefits
- Determine the extent to which patient expectations prior to treatment and satisfaction following manipulative and body-based practices are related to objectively measured biological endpoints
Energy Medicine
Goals
- Apply in studies of energy medicine the same standards used in designing experiments in physics, chemistry, and other scientific disciplines.
- Accelerate progress in understanding the source and biological effects of putative energy fields.
- Enhance understanding of what transpires in the course of energy healer-patient interactions.
Whole Medical Systems
Goals
- Acquire a richer understanding of cam whole medical systems and how they operate within their indigenous and dispersed settings.
- Document the benefits of some cam whole medical system treatments for selected health conditions.
- Elucidate mechanisms underlying successful multimodal treatments used in cam whole medical systems.
International Health Research
Goals
- Advance understanding of traditional/indigenous medical systems through international collaborative studies
- Contribute to the preservation of irreplaceable and valuable traditional/ indigenous cam knowledge and resources
- Enhance understanding of how safe and effective cam interventions are integrated with non-cam interventions abroad and in the United States.
Health Services Research
Goals
- Determine how cam services affect the health care marketplace.
- Enhance the design of cam clinical studies and trials by adding instruments to collect health services research data
- Explore models of organized health care delivery that integrate cam with conventional care.
Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of cam Research and Integrated Medicine
Goals
- Enhance understanding of the social, cultural, and economic factors relating to the use of cam.
- Describe the framework needed to enable the creation of integrated, multidisciplinary research teams.
- Encourage the creation of integrated research environments and practice communities.
- Define and address ethical and legal issues related to the conduct of cam clinical trials domestically and internationally.
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