Complementary and Alternative Medicine for US Veterans and Active Duty Military Personnel Promising Steps to Improve Their Health

摘要

This special issue, funded by the Veterans Health Administration's (VA's) Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation, presents the most recent evidence from health services research on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among US veterans and active military personnel. The National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine defines CAM, "simply as a group of diverse medical and health care interventions, practices, products, or disciplines that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine."1 CAM may include acupuncture, massage, biofeedback, meditation, guided imageiy, qi gong, herbs and nutritional supplements, aromatherapy, and energy healing (or Reiki).2 CAM is also more recently referred to as "integrative medicine" or "complementary and in-tegrative medicine."