In a patient-centred approach, active medical management or medical management without dialysis is a means of conservative management of patients with chronic kidney disease.

This includes a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. IT includes herbs, dietary supplements, meditation, biofeedback, hypnosis, acupuncture, Ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese medicine, chiropractic, massage, tai chi, yoga, electromagnetic therapy, kinesiology, reiki, and qigong.

The use of complementary and alternative medicine as been driven by the cost of complementary medicine, personal beliefs, willingness to try different approaches, and perceived benefits. Studies have shown that the majority of patients were satisfied with CAM and prepared to use it simultaneously. In this context, it is important for the physicians to be aware and ask patients about their use of CAM, as this could identify a potentially dangerous drug-herb or drug-drug interactions caused by the concomitant use of CAM and CM.

Reference: BahaliM. Use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with end-stagerenal disease on haemodialysis in Trinidad: A descriptive study. BMC ComplementAltern Med. 2017; 17: 250.