Yin and yang: the case for integrative cancer care.

摘要

Traditional western allopathic medicine operates on a disease-focused model. Identification of symptoms is important primarily for the clues they provide to an underlying disease process. If the underlying disease process can be correctly identified and successfully treated, the symptoms should resolve. While this model is logical and allows for great successes in the treatment of profound disease, the model can be less successful for the treatment of 'premorbid' symptomatology (symptoms that are occurring without an identifiable pathologic disease process) or for the treatment of symptoms that persist despite 'successful' treatment of a disease, or even symptoms caused by the treatment itself.Eastern medical traditions, in contrast, focus on a 'harmonious balance' of the body, both internally and with the external environment. Diagnosis and treatment are based on the evaluation of the person's vital energy, or Qi. This vital energy is dynamically balanced between Yin and Yang, deficiency and excess, cold and hot, interior and exterior. Deficiencies or excesses in some form will produce an imbalance in the energy flow and result in clinical symptoms. Treatment is then focused on the restoration of the balance of energy, through herbal treatments, acupuncture or meditation, and Tai Chi exercises. The system allows for a more preventative approach to disease than the western model, and focuses holistically on the entire organism and its response to illness in all of its symptomatology.