Oxford Handbook of Complementary Medicine

• Covers a large range of practical issues, diagnostic techniques, and risk-benefit assessments of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
• Presents the evidence base in a precise and easily accessible manner
• Comprehensive and critical analysis of CAM modalities
• Includes over 110 CAM treatments and 62 conditions

Readership: Hospital doctors, GPs, nurses, medical students, and other healthcare professionals with an interest in complementary and alternative medicine.

Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, Exeter, UK, Max H Pittler, Senior Research Fellow, Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter and Plymouth, UK, Barbara Wider, Research Fellow Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, UK, and Kate Boddy, Information Officer, Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, UK

Professor Ernst qualified as a physician in Germany where he also completed his MD and PhD theses. He was Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna (Austria). He came to the University of Exeter in 1993 to establish the first Chair in Complementary Medicine. He is founder/Editor-in-Chief of two medical journals (FACT ('Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies') and 'Perfusion'). His work has been awarded with 13 scientific prizes/awards and two Visiting Professorships. He served on the 'Medicines Commission' of the British 'Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency' (1994 - 2005) and on the 'Scientific Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products' of the 'Irish Medicines Board'. In 1999 he took British nationality. Publications: >1000 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, 39 books (translated into 5 5 languages). About five hundred invited international lectures.

Barbara Wider, MA (Exeter, UK), Staatsexamen (Freiburg, Germany) is a Research Fellow in Complementary Medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, UK. With a background in humanities, earth sciences and European studies, Barbara studied at the Universities of Freiburg (Germany), Montpellier (France) and Exeter (UK) and worked as an assistant researcher and tutor in Germany and France before joining the Complementary Medicine group in Exeter in 1996. She is co-author/editor of three books including the Desktop Guide to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Elsevier, 2006), several book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Barbara also edits the journal FACT (Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies), a quarterly review journal of complementary medicine research.

"...[this book will be] of the greatest interest to general practitioners, but it will have some appeal across most branches of medicine...concise, finely set out and a good reference text." - Occupational Medicine

"This book will allow practitioners to safely integrate their patients' use of CAM therapies into their conventional medical treatment...The Oxford Handbook of Complementary Medicine is an exellent resource for a wide range of medical practitioners to enable informed and reasoned discussion of CAM therapies." - Andrew Sutherland, The New Zealand Medical Journal

General issues
Diagnostic CAM methods
Complementary therapies
Complementary medicines
Conditions
1: Cardiology
2: Dermatology
3: Diabetology
4: Gastroenterology
5: Gynaecology & obstetrics
6: Infectious diseases
7: Metabolism/endocrinology
8: Neurology
9: Oncology
10: Otorhinolaryngology
11: Psychiatry
12: Respiratory diseases
13: Rheumatology
14: Urology
15: Miscellaneous conditions
Vulnerable populations
Questions frequently asked by patients