MNrural Health School

Posts Tagged ‘Holistic’

Unlike most conventional medicine practices, holistic medicine seeks to treat all components of the human body, which include physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing. While not all alternative health care is widely accepted, a growing number of holistic medicine practices like massage therapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic are definitely gaining leeway in modern society.

Where conventional medical wisdom addresses physical symptoms of a disease, holistic medicine attempts to treat the whole person and get to the root cause of the illness through natural and holistic therapies. Holistic medicine like chiropractic, for example, is a great alternative to sometimes invasive surgeries and other traditional pain treatments involving medications that can carry strong side effects. Using an X-ray to determine where “subluxations” exist along the spine, licensed chiropractors can help to realign these spinal disruptions through gentle and safe adjustments (to the spine). If you haven’t yet experienced a chiropractic treatment for your chronic back pain and headaches, you should speak with your primary care provider to determine if chiropractic might be right for you.

Another holistic medicine – acupuncture, is part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and facilitates fine, hair-like needles that are placed along acu-points of the body. Believing in restoring “Chi” (energy flow) to the body, acupuncture is widely used in pain relief, quitting smoking, stress reduction, and is even used to help alleviate symptoms related to the affects of cancer treatments.

Massage therapy is a holistic medicine that probably has the greatest historical roots in ancient healing. Used for thousands of years, massage therapy has shown remarkable value in reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, and improving overall health and wellbeing. Specific therapies range from basic Swedish massage to more intricate massage modalities like Trigger Point therapy. This holistic medicine is comprised of over 80 bodywork treatments that can be tailored to meet specific health needs and goals.  Read more...

Holistic medicine is health care that comprises all the aspects of one’ s personality to obtain the optimum state of wellness. It encompasses the process of looking into the wholeness of the person including nutritional, physical, environmental, spiritual, lifestyle and social values. Holistic medicine includes virtually all treatments and diagnosis known to achieve balance in personality. It upholds the responsibility of educating one’s self to attain the ideal over-all health and well being.

Holistic medicine and Alternative Medicine

Alternative medicine is commonly associated with holistic medicine. By definition, alternative medicine is the medical techniques that are usually not accepted or practiced by conventional medical practitioners. Most alternative medicines are founded to have rooted on unscientific, untested and untraditional principles. Often, these forms of medicine are closely associated with metaphysical components and anti-scientific stands.

Many of these techniques don’t normally have pharmaceutical values like the acupuncture, herbalism, Reiki, homeopathy and the likes. Yet the alternative medicine may also be used in experimental non-drug and drug techniques that are not yet accepted in the medical circles. The future of alternative medicine holds on the potentiality of transforming the “alternative medicine” into conventional medicine since it is now becoming widely appreciated and practiced by medical doctors. In fact, complementary medicine is the term used for alternative medicine practiced in combination with conventional medicine.

Due to these changes in view of the alternative medicine, holistic medicine has become a more preferable option among those who are quite doubtful of the alternative medicine.

Alternative medicine may appeal to metaphysical beliefs and so does the holistic medicine but on milder and more scientifically based approach. Yet the knowledge applied in holistic medicine still cannot hide the fact that it tends to cling to non-scientific knowledge.  Read more...