Integrated Medicine - a Challenge to the Health-care System

A theoretical perspective on developmental trends within the conventional health-care system is outlined and the paradigm of conventional medicine is opposed to a paradigm of integrated medicine.

Abstract

In Denmark people react by exit to unsatisfactory aspects of the officially high-praised 'socialized' health-care system More than 20 per cent of the total adult population in Denmark and Sweden use alternative therapists outside the health-care system In recent years centres for integrated medi one have been established on private initiative in Denmark In these centres authorized health personnel and alternative therapists co-operate The demand for alternative ways of understanding and handling disease could be interpreted as a reaction to developmental trends within the conventional health-care system. In this paper, a theoretical perspective on these trends is outlined and the paradigm of conventional medicine is opposed to a paradigm of integrated medicine