The alternatives: "complementary" or "integrative" medicine programs gain acceptance.

Tom Johnson, an independent insurance agent in Indianapolis. suffered for years with a sore ankle that often was so inflamed and swollen he could barely walk. An avid golfer and runner, Johnson frequently sought medical relief.

The most common solution was a cortisone injection. "It would work

On his first visit, Johnson met with Dr. Young Ki Park, the head of the Westview Center for Integrated Medicine, who recommended wet cupping, a practice by which the inflamed area is punctured with a lancet or acupuncture needles. The practitioner ignites a tightly folded napkin, which functions like a wick but keeps the flame away from the skin. A glass cup is placed over the burning wick, and a vacuum is created as combustion consumes the oxygen inside the cup.

Park a doctor of osteopathy, longtime student of alternative medicines and the only practitioner of cupping in Indiana - says this type of treatment removes the congestive blood and oxygenates the inflamed area.

And Johnson says the process works. "I had it done about three weeks ago and it worked."

Turning to alternative therapies when traditional medicine fails is by no means a new phenomenon. What is new is that many hospitals are now providing these alternative treatments as part of their spectrum of services. In Indiana alone, at least five hospitals now offer "integrative" or "complementary" programs, so named because they integrate the most effective Western and alternative methods.

In Indianapolis, Westview's center is joined by St. Vincent Hospital's Center for Complementary Medicine and Pain Management, and Community Hospitals' Center for Integrative Medicine. In Mishawaka, The Healing Arts Center on the River was started more than two years ago in conjunction with Ancilla Health Systems Inc. And St. Joseph's Medical Center in South Bend says its Pain and Complementary Medicine Center has been around since 1974.

These complementary medicine programs provide a wide variety of services including acupuncture, herbal remedies, nutritional consultations, massage therapy, hypnosis and biofeedback. The underlying principle is a holistic approach, treating not only the body but the mind and spirit as well. Because of this emphasis on holistic healing, many of the programs also offer psychotherapy and visual-healing lessons as part of their services.

"We deal with the mental and spiritual aspect of healing," says Allison Tomusk, director of Community Hospitals' Center for Integrative Medicine. "We concentrate on the whole body, not just on the patient's physical treatment."

Already more than 30 medical schools in the United States, including Indiana University, offer courses in alternative medicine. In 1992 the National Institutes of Health created the Office of Alternative Medicine to research and evaluate unconventional medical practices.

One of the more recent studies by the NIH dealt with the benefits of acupuncture. The consensus panel of the NIH found clear evidence that needle acupuncture treatment is effective for postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, nausea from pregnancy and postoperative dental pain, The panel also concluded that for a number of other pain-related conditions, such as headaches, tennis elbow, lower back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome, acupuncture may be beneficial but the scientific data was less convincing.

Dr. Wes Wong, medical director of St. Vincent's Center for Complementary Medicine and Pain Management, says his center's own study of 831 patients indicated that acupuncture is helpful in easing pain. "By the patients' own subjective measure of pain, acupuncture helped," Wong says. "With acupuncture, there was better pain improvement than with a placebo."

But proponents of complementary medicine stress that it's important not to ignore traditional medicine. Karen Dupuis, director of marketing for the Healing Arts Center on the River in Mishawaka, says alternative treatments simply can't replace Western medicine.

"What we are saying is that if you need chemotherapy, you need chemotherapy, but we can help with the pain and the nausea," Dupuis says.

Although more and more doctors are accepting the benefits of alternative medicine, most insurance companies have yet to cover many of the alternative treatments offered through the complementary-medicine programs.

"I think we need to bring to bear scientific scrutiny on the various alternative therapies," Dr. Wong says, "as well as do a cost-benefit analysis of these types of treatments."