An academic essay. Hello everybody. I would be very thankful if somebody could correct this essay. Any suggestions and feedbacks are welcome! Many thanks in advance. Nowadays, usage of alternative medicine became very common. Many people attempt to try it all over the world and believe this kind of medicine to be effective and harmless. However, I am assured that such a belief is wrong and alternative therapies are usually helpless in certain medical conditions and might be even injurious in others. Complementary and alternative forms of medicine may be helpful in some chronic conditions, such as chronic back pain, and useless in others. Chiropractic,for instance,has been found effective for some forms of back pain. However, I am certain that it should be used in addition to conventional treatments like pain medications and physiotherapy. On the other hand, seriously ill people sometimes forego beneficial conventional treatments in favor of alternative methods because they are non invasive and, therefore, less traumatizing. For example, in case of terminally ill people, time is a crucial feature. In other words, the earlier they start treatment, the better their changes to survive. By choosing the alternative medicine over traditional Western one, people make a mistake which may cost them their lives. In addition, compared to conventional medicine which is in some countries even free of charge, alternative methods are quite expensive. Furthermore, today some of alternative therapists take advantage of desperate terminally ill people who cannot be helped by traditional Western medicine by persuading them into treatment, thus, making profit on people's hope. Given the circumstances, these people and their families would pay substantial sums, which many times cannot afford, for the useless treatment. In conclusion, based on the said above, I believe that alternative medicine should not be used by itself, but only as a supplementary therapy in conjunction with a conventional one, due to its uselessness and, in some cases, harmfulness.