Older Adults' Use of Medical and Alternative Care

Abstract

This article reports on a study of 77 older adults, 35 of them patients of family physicians and the other 42 patients of alternative practitioners. We compare the two groups along a number of dimensions and identify differences in health problems, social characteristics, practitioners consulted, reasons for choice of therapy and practitioner, pathways taken to care, and length and frequency of practitioner visits. The data show that few older adults sought care fromalternative practitioners and that those who did so had distinctive social and health characteristics. All the older adults began their search for care with conventional medical doctors. Most remain within the medical system. Those who moved beyond it had not found relief from their chronic problems and also had access to wider sources of information about alternatives, provided mainly by family and friends. The pathways followed by patients of alternative practitioners were complex and varied, but these patients did not forsake medical care.