Now I’m going to go ahead and make a massive generalization when I say this next bit . . .
Western Medicine is concerned with and treats symptoms.
Eastern Medicine is concerned with and treats the things that cause symptoms.
If someone goes into a western doc with back pain, doc will make the pain go away with the tool s/he has (pills, surgery, manual therapy). A pill will make the person no longer feel the pain . . . but the pain is still there. Nothing has been done to treat what is causing the back pain in the first place.
Eastern folk will stay at 20,000 feet and take the back pain in to consideration along with EVERYTHING else going on with the person (job stress, food allergies, instable core, etc). Treating the whole person will include treating the ultimate cause of the ailment. Treat that and your fix is permanent (provided there is one!).
To make it real simple: 10 people walk into a western doc’s office with back pain, they all get the same (or relatively the same) treatment protocol. 10 people walk into an eastern doc’s office with back pain, they each will receive a completely different treatment strategies.
For the eastern doc, it is more important what person has the disease rather than what disease the person has. Neat.