Alternative medicines are almost 500 in number. To name a few alternative medicines, are herbal medicine, acupressure, behavior health, homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicine, non-medical massage therapy, cranio-sacral therapy, hypnosis, guided imagery, chelation therapy, acupuncture, folk remedies, tribal-traditional medicine, Christian Science, megavitamins, self-help groups, reiki, flower therapy, pranic healing, reflexology, energy healing, Shiatsu Oriental Massage and ayurvedic.

It has lot of definitions. But according to the National Center for Alternative Medicine- it is defined as group of different class of health and medical practices which are not a part of present conventional medicine. It also an integrative medicine i.e. a Combinations of both alternative and conventional method of treatment. For e.g. in addition to the conventional prescription medicine, a nice Tai massage is proved to do wonders.

Conventional allopathic doctors are preferred in any case of health problem from childhood. Alternative medicine has gained popularity and gained trust by many people and the same is advocated to different field in treatment where conventional medicine are not used like boosting patient's confidence, in pain management, stress reduction and few preventive health therapies.

Many patients use alternative medicine and traditional therapies to complement each other. Alternative medicine is both holistic and preventative one, which helps a patient's physical and psychological well-being and tries to be preventive than a therapy used after the symptoms appear.

Itg has also gained popularity in last few years. As the name suggest these are becoming an alternative form of therapy when the conventional method is going ineffective. Mostly for un-curable disease and for chronic pains alternative medicines relieve pain immediately and relieve the mental stress and tensions. When compared to conventional methods the alternative medicines has less or no side effects. Regular conventional medicine believers find it difficult to switch to alternative medicine. The difference between the conventional and alternative medicine is conventional medicine cure physical ailments where as alternative medicine focus on mind and body.

In Alternative medicine, the philosophies followed are: Body with little therapy and medicine can heal by itself. Always a product should enhance the bodies healing capacity. Prevention is better than cure. A general check up is carried out periodically to keep a check before anything goes wrong. Bodies responding capacity to any treatment is important then the treatment itself.