Week 1: Introduction to CAH, CAM, holistic approaches, integrative health, basic conceptsCh. 1 – Integrative HealingNursing is unique to other healthcare professions in that it acknowledges to basic concepts of alternative therapies:oHolism – belief that biological, psychological, emotional, spiritual and environmental aspects of health and illness are equally importantoHumanism – belief that mind and body cannot be separated, people have the power to solve own their own problems, people are responsible for their life’s patterns, well-being is a combination of personal satisfaction and contributions to the larger communityBackgroundConventional medicine/biomedicine – describes Western medical practicesAlternative medicine/complementary medicine – term that describes all other healing practices that don’t fall under conventional medicineTraditional medicine – indigenous medical systems ex. Traditional Chinese MedicineConventional MedicineIts 200 years old and founded on the philosophies of:oRene Descartes – mind and body are separateoSir Isaac Newton – the universe is like a mechanical heart, working in a linear, sequential formReductionistic approach – people/patients viewed as machines and converted to smaller components: systems, organs, cells and biochemicalHealth – absence of diseaseBiomedical priority is to treat the symptoms of illness or eliminate disease and does not consider energy, thoughts and feelings; does not use a holistic approachBiomedicine is fast and aggressive and works well against infection and during emergencies but has less success in long-term illness (ex. arthritis, heart disease)Practitioner is responsible for cure and healing Alternative MedicineDefinition: A broad range of healing philosophies, approaches, and therapies that conventional medicine does not commonly use, accept, study, understand, or make available (NCCAM, 2008).Characteristics of all alternative therapies:obased on the paradigm of whole systems – belief that people are more than physical bodiesomental, emotional, spiritual relationship and environment are crucial to state of health
oindividualized interventionsointernal self-healing exists within each personopeople responsible for their own health care decisionsonature, time and patience are great healerslife force – an integrated energy that sustains the body and is a spiritual entity linked to a higher being or infinite source of energy; a freely flowing force = optimal health but a blocked/weakened force = illnessParadigms of MedicineViewConventional MedicineAlternative MedicineMind/body/spiritseparateAre oneThe body is A machineA living microcosm of the universeDisease results whenParts breakEnergy/life force becomes unbalancedSymptomsDysfunctional & need to be fixedCommunicates the state of the whole personRole of medicineTo combat diseaseRestore mind/body/spirit harmonyApproachTreat and suppress symptomsSearch for patterns of disharmony/imbalanceFocuses on Parts/matter
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