[Rheumatic diseases and alternative medicine]

Besides the scientific- rational medicine alternative medicine keeps spreading in our days. The authors give a review of the possibilities of the alternative therapy of locomotor diseases. Patients suffering from locomotor diseases ask increasingly often for these therapeutical procedures. Literary review is given on acupuncture, manual therapy, homeopathy and certain physiotherapeutical techniques as well as on other less often applied alternative therapeutical procedures. It is stressed that alternative treatment may also involve potential danger. It is stated finally that as shown by the review of the literature well controllable clinical examinations required indispensably for the estimation of the efficacy of a therapeutical procedure are only in limited number at disposal.