The current interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) begs the question of their integration into the health care system, which will most likely require rigorous scientific evaluation in randomized controlled trials (RCT) before they are fully accepted and integrated. Although some meta-analyses demonstrate the potential of certain energy-based (EB) CAM therapies others highlight significant methodological weaknesses in the study design. It is not only important to verify the effectiveness of energy-based therapies (EBT), but also to do it with methods that are appropriate to the evaluation of this type of therapy. In fact, there are those who question the applicability of traditional research models to the evaluation of CAM therapies. It is with this in mind that we wish to suggest certain parameters that should be taken into account when planning a research for the evaluation of CAM therapies and meta-analyses.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
