CAM in Europe PDF Print E-mail
"Everyone has the right to benefit from any measures enabling them to enjoy the highest possible standard of health attainable" The European Social Charter adopted by the Council of Europe (1961, revised 1996)

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is being increasingly used by citizens across Europe as a means of improving their health and for treating their ill-health. There is an increasing awareness that a holistic approach to healthcare is needed based on the understanding that a human being is a complex integrated whole of mind, body and spirit who is closely interconnected with their physical and social environment.

Conventional medicine has developed an approach to the treatment of ill-health based on identifying diseases and treating the patient as a set of separate parts and systems. CAM complements that approach by approaching the whole as an integration of all the systems of the body and completely interconnected with the mental, emotional and spiritual state of the patient.
 
Using the best aspects of both approaches EFCAM believes that promoting an integrated approach to the healthcare of each patient is the future way forward for healthcare in Europe.

In 1999 the Council of Europe adopted a  resolution on CAM  (non-conventional  medicine). In the absence of any coherent statement from any institution of the EU EFCAM considers this statement the best statement available. It is available here; http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta99/ERES1206.htm
 
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