The domain of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) encompasses a wide range of practices, often combined to create personalized courses of treatment. To gauge its true effectiveness, integrative medicine would best be studied in the flexible way it’s actually practiced, rather than as individual modalities.
The emerging field of complexity science may offer useful concepts and analytic tools. To explore this possibility, in October 2007, the Institute partnered with the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the Georgetown University School of Medicine to present a conference on complex systems and CAM research.
A peer-reviewed white paper summarizing the conference was published in the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Read: Applying Principles from Complex Systems to Studying the Efficacy of CAM Therapies