Bratisl Lek Listy. 1995 Feb; 96(2): 63-8.

[Problems with the limitations of medicine]

Zikmund V.

BACKGROUND: Dissatisfaction with the exclusively biomedical approach to the etiology, manifestations, treatment and prevention of disease has manifested itself by the broadening of the limits of medicine from the inside in the form of bio-psycho-social model of diseases. From the outside, there has been an effort to enter medicine by various approaches and methods of the so-called alternative medicine. OBJECTIVES: Critical evaluation of positives and negatives of the bio-psycho-social model diseases as well as of the approaches of alternative medicine. Particular attention is paid to the so-called psychotronics and psychotronics-based natural medicine. METHODS: Analysis of the problem under study using world wide publications that are cited in the Current Contents in the part dealing with Life Sciences. MAIN RESULTS: Multi-factorial bio-psycho-social model of diseases has stimulated the complex interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research of the influence of psychological and psychosocial factors upon the human health and diseases respectively. There is, however, a lack of concrete directions for the application of the model in clinical practice. The main disadvantage of alternative medicine is that its methods have no scientifically based conceptions and their effects remain unproved. The main risk of the use of these methods are faulty diagnoses and the neglect of the most effective treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Medicine is not merely a science, it is an art as well. The indispensable part of this are should reside in the most effective use of the non-specific positive effects of the interaction between physicians and patients.