03.01.07
According to AARP, Americans age 50 and older seldom talk with their physicians about their use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). In the spring of 2006, AARP and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) partnered to measure CAM use among older Americans and to understand communication practices between patients and their physicians. They found that people between the ages of 50 and 59 are the most likely to report CAM use. While 63% of the 1,559 age 50+ individuals surveyed have used one or more CAM therapies, 69% of those who reported using CAM had not discussed it with a physician because the physician never asked (42%), they did not know they should (30%), or there was not enough time during the office visit (19%). Additional barriers, AARP claims, include patient perceptions that physicians are unwilling to discuss CAM therapies or will react negatively to disclosure of CAM use.