COMPLEMENTARY MODALITIES
This really is an extension and elaboration of something we’ve always had in cancer medicine,and that is supportive care — the quality-of-life arm of cancer treatment. Patients are looking for something that they can do on their own to help themselves.

Anyone is free to walk into a health food store and roam the shelves and select anything they like, and it gives them a real sense of participation in their own care and a sense of control.

In an indirect way, oncologists can have a profound effect on this, giving patients something that they can do in the form of a good complementary modality or, for example, recommending that they watch their diet in certain ways to keep the fat lower,etc. When patients feel helpless — as though they can’t contribute to their own health — they have a much greater tendency to look for other things that they can do on their own.

Oncologists tend to focus on treating the tumor, and that’s obviously the most important thing to do. At the same time,patients and family members have tremendous needs. They have physical needs, all kinds of symptoms that need to be controlled — and a host of psychological needs. And we have to pay more attention to those. It’s not feasible for oncologists in practice to do all of this, but they can surround themselves with colleagues and others who can provide those services.

Right now, a majority of clinical and comprehensive cancer centers offer some degree of complementary medicine. It may be only a part-time practitioner who comes in to do music therapy or massage once a week, or it could be something much more full-blown. But they are either developing or already have something resembling a complementary medicine program.

—Barrie Cassileth, PhD

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