Use of nontraditional therapies--implications for older adults.

Using nontraditional therapies to replace traditional medical treatment is becoming more popular in the United States. Nurses in the twenty-first century are faced with the challenge of broadening their view of health care and discovering the benefits of nontraditional, often ancient, health care principles and practices. Health care professionals and patients need to understand, however, that although a nontraditional therapy may be natural or noninvasive, it is not necessarily safe and without consequences.