Alternative medicine

Overview

Click on the links above for teaching schemes, activities and web links and other resources related to this topic.

Timing
This topic could be covered n as few as 6 hours but it provides useful opportunities for the development of the Data and Causal Links Ideas about Science and argument skills. 10 hours would allow a fuller exploration of ideas and skills.

A suggested route through the topic

1. The meaning of 'health'. Alternative approaches to health.

This provides a chance to consider wider health issues than those covered elsewhere in the specification, including mental affects on health.

• Get students to come up with a definition of good health. Share and discuss these and compare the WHO version.

• Consider what we mean by alternative therapies. Alternative to what? They can draw on the work on drug trials in 9.3.

• Explore the alternative therapies we all use with the home remedies (9 KB) activity

• Discuss the difference between a holistic approach and the more organ specific approach of western medicine.

2. Mechanisms to account for the effects of an alternative therapy

There is always a principle to account for the effect of an alternative therapy. It may not be one that is consistent with modern science.

• The sheer diversity of therapies and claims made for them should raise interesting questions about the kind of explanations we use. Students could use the window shopping (6 KB) activity to illustrate this diversity.

• Each student or small group could carry out independent research into the principle behind an alternative therapy (6 KB) and present this as a poster or short talk.

• 'Natural' is often used as a justification for the safety of alternative therapies. This claim could be examined critically with examples of natural poisons.

• The activity complementary versus conventional medicine (20 KB) raises questions about the boundaries of science and the effect of social influences. It also provides a review of the terminology used to describe the process of testing therapies.

• Some people believe the placebo effect can explain alternative therapies. The activity Testing the placebo effect (10 KB) allows students to design and carry out a safe experiment to test the effect.

3. Evidence for its effectiveness

More and more studies are testing the effectiveness of alternative therapies using the methods of modern clinical trials. The results of such studies can be found in the web links.

• The activity Evaluating an alternative medicine (38 KB) allows students to practice data analysis skills on the results of one study.

• It may be worth considering the extent to which the conclusions drawn from such studies depend on the prior attitudes of the researchers. Reports sponsored by the practitioners of alternative medicine come to different conclusions from those carried out by scientists.

• Many of the popular publications on alternative therapies use individual anecdotes as evidence in support of effectiveness. A comparison of this evidence with that of clinical trials will emphasis the role of controls in scientific investigation. There are many situations in which we do use anecdotal evidence to decide actions. Is it appropriate in this case?

4. Conclusions

Because the views are so polarised this topic provides a good opportunity to practice argument skills whilst drawing on the ideas learned in the topic.

• Students can construct an argument in support of alternative therapies using evidence provided on cards in the activity Constructing arguments in favour of alternative medicine. Click here (28 KB) for the student sheets for this activity, and here (25 KB) for the teachers guides for this activity.

• The activity Analysing an article on alternative medicine would then allow them to study an argument written by an expert in the field. Click here (26 KB) for the student sheets for this activity, and here (26 KB) for the teachers guides for this activity. An alternative would be to analyse and discuss the three articles on homeopathy in Science & Public Affairs December 2005.

• Students can express their own views in the activity Discussion and debate (9 KB).