Peer Responses:
Length: A minimum of 150 words per post, not including references
Citations: At least one high-level scholarly reference in APA per post from within the last 5 years
Citations need to be within 5 (Five) years
Context: Nursing in the USA
==============================================================
T7 W8 Cul D1 R1
There are different approaches to health that are practiced all over the world. Conventional health is considered mainstream health and has been proven effective based on many research studies. Complimentary medicine uses other treatment methods such as acupuncture to manage side effects of mainstream treatment of cancer (National Institutes of Health, 2018). Health approaches that incorporate complementary health and holistic health in combination with mainstream approaches is considered integrative health (National Institutes of Health, 2018).
A medical approach that is used instead of conventional treatment is considered alternative care (National Institutes of Health, 2018). A non-mainstream practice that combines conventional medicine is, complementary care. A non-mainstream practice that is used instead of conventional care is, alternative care (National Institutes of Health, 2018). Integrative care goes much deeper. It provides a holistic, patient-centered approach to well-being by including spiritual, emotional, mental, and social aspects of health instead of just treating one organ or symptom (National Institutes of Health, 2018). Complimentary Alternative Medicine (CAM) is divided into five categories (Institute of Medicine, 2005). The first category is the alternative medical system which includes Chinese medicine, homeopathy, ayurvedic and naturopathy. Mind-body is a category of CAM that involves mental healing, prayer, and meditation. Biological based CAM uses herbs like Gingko biloba and St. Johns warts, non-herb products like fish oil and special diets and functional foods. Manipulative and body-based treatments consist of chiropractic care, and massage therapy. The last category is energy-based therapies that used energy, Reiki and therapeutic touch (Institute of Medicine, 2005).
I am personally drawn to integrated health. I belief in a holistic approach to medicine. In my experience people are so different in how they respond to various treatment, medication and therapies. I have seen where addressing nutritional and hormonal imbalances has corrected depression. I feel, it is important to discover what will be the most effective approach to wellness for a patients based on their physical, emotional, psychological, biological, functional and spiritual needs as a whole. I believe there is a place for conventional medicine and complimentary medicine. I will use my daughter as an example. She had a history of seizures. Her anti-seizure medications were not managing her seizure disorder. She was still having on an average of 3 per month. We added Cannabidiol CBD oil to her treatment plan which proved to be very effective in her case. She was able to reduce the amount of medications she was on and has had only one seizure in the past 3 years since she started CBD. That being said this was done in a very controlled situation and a great deal of research was evaluated before making the decision.
I believe there are many ways to achieve health while minimizing adverse reactions. I would like to see more non-conventional treatments, if used carefully and wisely, incorporated into more practices.
References
Institute of Medicine. (2005). Introduction – Complementary and alternative medicine in the United States – NCBI bookshelf. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK83804/
National Institutes of Health. (2018). Complementary, alternative, or integrative health: Whats in a name? Retrieved from https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name
