In this context, one may view the lack of health at five levels:
Dissatisfaction
Discomfort
Disability
Overt disease
Death or dying (Rosch, n.d.).
While we would normally tend to view these as progressive and more severe stages of illness, they might be accorded equal weight on a holistic scale which measures total health. Another distinction that follows from the above is the difference between normal and average. Most of our recognition of disease is based upon an observation of an abnormal finding. There is little question that such a deviation suggests illness, but it is an error to assume automatically that a normal finding implies health. Normal values are generally determined from surveys of Americans presumed to be healthy. Many of them, however, are afflicted with hypertension, ulcers, arthritis, or obesity, or have habits that are anything but healthy. What is required is a concept of optimal health; that is, the best achievable state of total wellness for a given individual (Rosch, n.d.).
Even though our modern health care system is dominated by drug orientated orthodox medicine, there are an increasing number of people who are seeking safer and more holistic alternatives. There are many reasons for this increase in the popularity of the various forms of alternative or holistic medicine, but most if not all of these are rooted in the failings of orthodox medicine (Holistic Medicine or Reductionism, n.d.).
As holistic medicine is enjoying an increase in popularity, there is still considerable resistance to this form of medicine in many sections of the medical community. It is necessary, in order to establish the need for change to the current orthodox medicine-based healing system, to examine the weaknesses or failings of orthodox medicine and explore the reasons why these failings have happened. It is important to realize that this fault finding process is made necessary for two reasons. First, those members of our current health care system that are resistant to change should be made more aware of the shortcomings of orthodox medicine and the advantages of holistic medicine. Second, there is a perception within the medical community that orthodox medical practitioners may utilize holistic therapies within the context of their current reductionist, interventionist, and symptomatic approach to the treatment of disease. Some doctors seek to utilize holistic therapies while rejecting the underlying holistic philosophy. It is vitally important that the reasons why this is not feasible are clearly established (Holistic Medicine or Reductionism, n.d.).
In order to fully understand the reasons for the various strengths and weaknesses of those forms of healing which comprise our current health care system, both orthodox medicine and holistic medicine, it is necessary to consider the implications and limitations of the philosophies which form the basis of these two systems. Practitioners of holistic medicine, who base their practice on the philosophy of holism, strive to attain a condition of optimum health and believe that the cause of ill health begins with our environment and the fundamental nutritional building blocks of which we are comprised and upon which our every function depends. Practitioners of orthodox medicine, who base their practice on the philosophy of reductionism, aim not to attain a condition of optimum health, a concept in which they do not believe, but rather they aim merely to eliminate symptoms of specific diseases. This is done predominantly by the use of symptom suppressing drugs and by the surgical removal or replacement of diseased tissues or organs. Whereas holism is fundamentally supportive, cause based, and preventative, reductionism is primarily interventionist and symptomatic, and plays little or no role in prevention (Holistic Medicine or Reductionism, n.d.).
It has been said that a paradigm shift is occurring in our health care system as alternative medicine begins to compete with orthodox medicine to become the dominant paradigm. Although it has been suggested that nutritional therapy and environmental medicine is now part of orthodox medicine and in spite of the increasing grass roots support for alternative medicine, there is an enormous gap to bridge before orthodox medicine would be in fear of losing its dominance. Since those that practice orthodox medicine do not appear to be any closer to abandoning their reductionist interventionist approach than they were 2 or 3 decades ago, it would appear that there is more likely to be integration or takeover rather than a paradigm shift. This newly emerging medicine has been called integrative medicine. Integrative medicine can only be regarded as a desirable and positive change insofar as it establishes and consolidates a genuine respect for the principles of holism and an appreciation of the whole truth (Holistic Medicine or Reductionism, n.d.).
This has created an increase in the employment of doctors, higher morale for those who wanted to practice holistic medicine and are now allowed to, and more respect for healthcare administrators, who were willing to change with the times. The long-term implications of the increase of women in healthcare administration are hard to determine, but it appears that a larger focus on women's health issues and holistic therapy will be
A significant danger here could be a basic lack of self-esteem caused by sneering attitudes from peers when attempting to take part in physical fitness programs. Body issues are also a significant factor here. Emotional wellness is closely connected to social wellness, especially when it comes to the school setting. Being bullied and abused by one's peers as a result of a certain lack of prowess or excess body weight
This might also be supplemented with a regular multi-vitamin strategy for Tyrone and for his family. This also hints at the need for significant dietary strategy changes for Tyrone. However, as the family profile denotes, many of these issues stem from the habits of his wife Susan, who has taken on the familial role as the provider of food and the role model for eating habits. Another issue which will
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In contrast to other work in this field, this book views alternative health as a social movement, and shows commonalities between the cultural left and the religious right that can help form a new healthcare paradigm. National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine 2000 Expanding Horizons of Healthcare: Five-year Strategic Plan, 2001-2005. National Institute of Health Publication No. 01-5001. Gaithersburg, Maryland: National Institutes of Health. In this report, the National Center for Complementary and
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