The complementary medicine consultation service was primarily consulted by oncology patients requesting assistance with pain and symptom management. Patients had questions about various therapies, particularly herbs and dietary supplements. Additional research is necessary to determine the cost-effectiveness of an integrated approach to care, particularly for institutions without access to reliable community resources for complementary and alternative medical therapies.

In the past decade the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has dramatically increased in adult, adolescent, and pediatric populations in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. There are multiple reasons for this, including the search for natural therapies, curative and ameliorative therapies for chronic illnesses that are unresponsive to conventional therapy, attraction to therapists or alternative modalities suggested by friends, and the autonomy of obtaining unregulated products and services. This review will address recent studies concerning adolescent use of specific CAM therapies for asthma, urinary tract infections, headaches, dietary supplements in athletes, and mental health conditions. Health care providers need to be aware of the CAM therapies their patients are using, the potential side effects, and the possibilities for including effective complementary therapies into the conventional care they provide.

IMPORTANCE Annual preventive health visits provide an opportunity to screen youths for unhealthy substance use and intervene before serious harm results. OBJECTIVES To assess the feasibility and acceptability and estimate the efficacy of a primary care computer-facilitated screening and practitioner-delivered brief intervention (CSBI) system compared with usual care (UC) for youth substance use and associated risk of riding with an impaired driver. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS An intent-to-treat pilot randomized clinical trial compared CSBI with UC among 965 youths aged 12 to 18 years at 5 pediatric primary care offices and 54 practitioners. Patients were randomized to CSBI (n = 628) or usual care (n = 243) groups within practitioner with 12 months of follow-up.

Massage techniques and postural manipulation used by West African women immigrants in Paris were studied, with the aim of demonstrating that culturally regulated caretaking practices have an influence on infant motor development. Twenty-five infants were observed between the ages of 3 and 12 months and 9 and 15 months. Frequency of massage and its accompanying set of physical exercises were found to be related to age at onset of independent walking. The findings show that infants receiving daily massage walk significantly earlier than infants who do not receive maeaage, thus confirming other reports that vestibular and postural stimulation have a positive effect on motor development. These results are discussed in relation to the observed frequency of contact and of physical games with the caregiver for a smaller sample of three infants, and to parental expectations about the age of acquisition of certain cognitive and motor abilities. African immigrant mothers expect their infants to sit and to walk earlier than French mothers.The conclusion emphasizes the contribution of social anthropology, which shows that in all cultures, physical development and body changes elicit symbolic practices and a search for explanation.