Alternative medicine is attracting more and more people and their place in the daily life of the inhabitants continues to grow! Zoom on the figures for 2020, consumer expectations and current trends for these professions.
How to justify a more sustained attraction for this type of alternative medicine consultations?
Following the health crisis and periods of confinement, the rhythms of life have changed, people have been confronted with unprecedented events generating certain pathologies such as stress, fatigue or eating disorders. This is due to the necessary and sudden adaptation to new ways of living, the impacts of teleworking, the natural anxieties about the risks incurred but also a certain boredom generated by the lack of activity and social interactions.
While factors such as irritation or anxiety were previously not always taken seriously by the majority because they were often temporary or linked to a particular event, the French began to question their overall health and the best ways to take care of them. The length of the situation, the lack of visibility on the way out of the crisis affected all sections of the population and raised awareness.
In such a context, certain types of sessions have particularly attracted many people: those focused on dietetics to compensate for meals usually taken in business by adults or by children in their school establishment and compensate for the lack of activity, homeopathy and naturopathy to heal yourself naturally and strengthen your immunity to viruses, osteopathy for MSDs etc.
Digitization of alternative medicine
To continue to follow their clients even during periods of physical distancing, practitioners have turned overwhelmingly to video consultations. If they do not allow all the care to be provided – manipulations to relieve the back, massages or acupuncture – these sessions in distance have still allowed clients to receive advice and tips to better manage their emotions, adopt a better teleworking posture, knowing which foods to turn to or simply to confide and be able to converse freely.
Our advice to practitioners: the use of video in the medical sector has accelerated considerably with the health crisis, and platforms continue to improve aspects by allowing you, among other things, to transfer dematerialized media to your customers. Do not hesitate to start teleconsultation to reach more individuals, keep the link with your most fragile customers who limit their movements, especially if your department is affected by the curfew.
In addition, the digitization of medical information, more widely disclosed in recent years, allows alternative medicine to reach a much larger audience. This also explains the resurgence in popularity and the strong appetite for certain practices.
Taking care of yourself naturally: a growing trend
If the coronavirus pandemic was accompanied by many inconveniences, it reinforced among the Americans the desire to take care of themselves and their health, both physically and morally. And this in the most natural way possible, like changes in food consumption habits for example. Uses adopted during the first confinement have remained in effect for most individuals who continue to perform wellness routines and consult alternative medicine practitioners. Visits to psychologists have become more democratic, daily well-being has become a necessity and 95% of those questioned who use soft or alternative medicine at least 5 times a year say they perceive a real change and an improvement in their quality of life.
What obstacles to the practice of natural, unconventional, alternative or complementary medicine persist in 2021?
Several people say they do not believe in their effectiveness, do not need specific care, or find their cost a little too high. Not to mention those whose hesitations are based on the lack of information on these practices and their diversity.
Our advice to practitioners: highlight your activity on social networks and your website if you have one, join directories dedicated to alternative medicine, and ask your clients to leave an opinion on your services. The educational dimension that you will be able to bring in your speech on your site or your communication documents as well as the reassurance factors on the progress of a session or a program should not be neglected, far from it.
