Health Benefits of Alternative Therapies

Health Benefits of option TherapiesThe popularity of substitute therapies in the past two decades has been accompanied by a pro life sentenceration of sociological works in investigation different aspects of this phenomenon. A major strand of the literature in the sociology of option music, which concerns three kind actors intake uprs of alternative therapies, practiti angiotensin converting enzymers of alternative therapies and physicians (the orthodoxy). Research on purposers of alternative music has mainly investigated the causes of pots use of these modalities and has focused on why people use alternative medicine?Research suggests the one reason people use alternative therapy, such(prenominal)(prenominal) as telephone lineal Therapy, is that they argon dissatisfy with the wellness outcomes of orthodox medicine (H elderlyen, 1978 West, 1988 Sharma, 1996 Spiegel et al., 1998). It is argued that conventional medicine has been un adequate to bring rough degenerativ e and inveterate illness and has failed to completelyeviate pain associated with conditions such as arthritis, and back and get laid injuries (Ingliss and West, 1983 Anyinam, 1990). Sharmas (1992) qualitative study of 30 users of various alternative therapies in Britain, including occupational therapist. Provided relief to the idea that perseverings search alternative therapies in revise to remediation an illness that has non been success to the in full dealt with by GPs. Similarly, Furnham and Smith (1988) and Furnham and Forey (1994) in their British studies compargond patients of GPs and patients of alternative practitioners and showed that the latter group was ore sceptical of the efficacy of orthodox medicine. They reached this decision ground on the responses of subjects to statements such as Doctors relieve or cure that a few problems that their patients de gor, and Most people argon helped a great deal when they go to a doctor.Other melodic phrases cook been do about the use of alternative therapies, looking at how patients bent necessarily dissatisfied with the wellness outcome of biomedicine, but or else they are dissatisfied with the wellness check clank or the doctor patient alliance (Parker and Tupling, 1976 Taylor, 1984 Easthope, 1993). check to this argument in the literature, doctors spend too humble magazine with, and take up flyspeck respect for, their patients, who often are not in shited of the nature of their illnesses, diagnoses and prognoses. It is argued that doctors have lost their pitying touch and todays medicine toilette best be characterised as Fordist medicine which produces alienated and dissatisfied patients. In support of this argument, Sharmas (1992) inter haves with alternative therapists clients reveal that they see GPs spend too little time with patients. Furnham and Forey (1994) in addition found that users of alternative medicine are more likely to believe that GPs do not listen to what their patients have to say.Health Promotion match to Nelson (1997) occupational therapists understand the potentials of various occupational forms that are substantive and earnest to the respective(prenominal)ist. The therapist hopes and predicts that the occupational form will be perceptually, symbolically, and emotionally meaningful to the person that the occupational form and the meanings the person actively assigns to it will solvent in multidimensional put of purposes, and that the person will mesh in a voluntary occupational accomplishance. In separate words, when therapy is best, the person is full of purpose.thitherfore occupational therapists have a huge concern set around the advance of wellness.Thorogood (2004) argues that sociology as a discipline is found on comminuted analysis and as such, can contribute to health advance by focusing on questions that go beyond simple definition. In former(a) words sociology can and should engage in debate around why health promotion has evolved the way it has rather then however trying to establish a static definition of health promotion itself. In this way sociology can help health promotion to be reflective in terms of its manipulation and victimisation. piece of music this means sociology is distinct from health promotion, it is none the less a crucial contributor to the development and practice of health promotion.Ryan et al (2006) advance to health promotion states that it has been enormously influenced by the fact that medicine has been the dominant pretending inwardly health- attend furnish and a clear division exists in the midst of those who support the aesculapian exam impersonate of health and those who argue for a more holistic and/ or friendly lesson of health. inside health services, models of forethought are fairly vigorous understood and well established as fantasyual entities.Models of Health electric chargeLooking at the bio-medical model, Atkinson (1988) discusses how inwardly this model health is the absence of biological ab commonity, it believes infirmitys have peculiar(prenominal) causes, that the gracious body is likened to a machine to be appeaseored to health through personalised interventions that arrest, or reverse, the disease process, and that the health of a society is seen as largely dependent on the state of medical knowledge and the availability of medical resources.Bio-medicine and the health fear practices arising from it occupy a paradoxical position in contemporary societies. On the one hand, there is delayd enthusiasm for new medical breakthroughs as people seek interposition for an increase range of conditions. On the other hand, there is overly some disillusionment with clinical medicine and growing distrust of doctors etcetera despite massively increased investments in medical look into and health feel for, roughly of the diseases of modern society remain stubbornly resistant to effectual treatment, le t alone cure.Health professionals and doctors in particular, have been criticised for having a detached, neutral nuzzle. Some have linked this to the bio-medical model objectifying illness and reducing patients to little or more then a collection of symptoms.Critics such as Oliver (1996) have argued that more vigilance should be given to the brotherly, psychological and political aspects of illness and disability.Professionals such as occupational Therapist have responded to this by looking beyond the medical model and adopting a more person-centred approach to patient care.In this context, sociologists are interested in the ways that individual experiences of illness are shaped by wider social contexts, emphasising that the transition from health to illness involves significant changes in social status and therefore the attention of governments and an increasing number of health professionals has turned to the social and environmental influences on health giving rise to a new so cial- medical model approach to health based on disease prevention and health promotion.Taylor Field (2007) focuses on how health is more than the absence of disease it is a resource for everyday living. It looks at how diseases are caused by a cabal of factors, m all of them organism environmental. The focus of enquiry is on the relationship between the body and its environment and how significant improvements in health care are or soly likely to come from changes in peoples conduct and in the conditions under which they live.Occupational therapists draw their attention on this model and it can be understood in there inter-related approaches.The first focuses on individual behaviour and lifestyle choices, the second looks at peoples immediate social environment, and their relationships with others and the third is touch on with general socio-economic and environmental influences.The emergence of a new philosophy sometimes referred to postmodern value system has withal led to t he rise in alternative therapies (Bakx, 1991 Easthope, 1993 Sharma, 1993). Today most people regard nature as fondness, gentle, safe and benevolent they hold anti-science and anti-technology attitudes (Kurtz, 1994Park 1996) they believe in a holistic view of health (Anyinam, 1990) they reject authority, especially scientific authority, and cl force participation (Taylor, 1984 Easthope, 1993 Riessman, 1994) and they believe in individual responsibility (Cassileth, 1989 Coward, 1989). Alternative practitioners, such as Occupational therapist, commonly use natural and non-invasive treatments, espouse a holistic view of health, allow patients participation in the process of better (Aaskter,1989), and stress that health comes from inwardly the individual and it is supremely the responsibility of the individual to achieve a desired state of health.(Coward, 1989)Sussman (p.31) looks at the holistic concept of behaviour stresses an organic and/ or functional relationship, a continuing action, and a fundamental interdependence among the traditionally defined parts or areas of human behaviour. jibely, the understanding of any aspect of human behaviour or any human problem involves consideration of the potentialities and limitations inherent in human biology the characteristic ways of whimsy, thinking, acting, and relating to other that comprise constitution the nature of tangible environment, including natural resources, topographical features, and the man-made environment the social nature of and the doctor of significant social or reference groups the nature of culture, its potentialities and the limitations it imposes and the significance of time and mans orientation to time as a key factor in the ordering and regulation of behaviour.In many another(prenominal) respects, the holistic philosophy represents a reaction against certain forms of fragmentation and compartmentalisation which have characterised both scientific investigation and the approach to h uman problems during the first half of the 20th century. effectuation of the holistic approach is seen today in the growing body of research which crosses traditional discipline lines and in the renewed emphasis on citywide medicine, comprehensive mental health, and a comprehensive approach to a commodious spectrum of human problems including delinquency, alcoholism, un conflict, disability etc. the holistic approach is compatible with an increasing awareness of the tendency for various forms of pathology to occur in clusters.Medical give care and ProfessionalismMedical care, once dominated by a restricted orthopedical orientation, is now based on a growing recognition of the basal relationship between the anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and psychological functioning of the human body, and the reciprocal relationship between a disabled persons body functioning manifestation of his personality and his capacity to fulfil basic regions in job, family and familiarity.In contrast, look at the study brookne by All participants found that Occupational therapy was cosmos underutilised. unrivalled reason provided for this was the lack of understanding about the role of OT by other staff members. Participants of this study felt that the perspective of OT as more of a renewal service and less as a holistic service had an impact on the low use of OT, this being inwardly a hospice setting. They found OT was often defined too oftentimes by exercises or functional tasks, and not recognising functional tasks become even more critical to someone who is becoming weaker and weaker and is in the process of demise.The hallmark of professionalism has been accountability for the covering of expert knowledge to the service of others (Goode, 1960) Accountability implicates both the obligation to reply questions regarding decisions and/or actions and the availability and applications of sanctions for illegal or inappropriate actions and behaviours (Brinkerhoff , 2004) health professionals have historically been accountable to their regulatory bodies for their autonomous exercise of professional ruling in determining services provided (Abbott, 19988). In recent years, the traditional approach to health professional accountability has been called into question for several reasons, one being escalation health expenditures (Degeling, 2000). Because all professional decisions related to health care have financial implications, this control has frequently translated into greater limits on professional practice.Occupational Therapy and RehabilitationSussmans (1965) work on the sociology of replenishment is well recognised and has the support of the American sociological Association. The book emerged from a conference on Sociological Theory, Research and Rehabilitation held in Carmel, California in March 1965.According to Sussman, public interest in the concept of rehabilitation has greatly intensify in recent years. The term rehabilitation is being broadly utilize to many kinds of disabling human problems, including forcible disability, mental illnesses, mental retardation, alcoholism, do drugs addiction etc. Rehabilitation is used in both a limited and very comprehensive genius. It whitethorn refer to services relate with instruction, forcible functioning, psychological adjustment, social adaptions, vocational capabilities, or recreational activities.Occupational therapy rehabilitation can involve one of several types of therapy, used unitedly or separately, to help patients enter or re-enter the workforce. This can imply physical therapy, counselling, and job teach. The overall goal of these therapies is to remedy any place that may cause a patient to fail to act in both personal and professional environments.Physical occupational therapy rehabilitation may be needed if a patient has been either injured or born with a physical handicap which interferes with everyday living. This can include the re-training of certain major muscle groups as well as education in using a wheelchair or other mobility aid to perform simple and complex tasks. In some more severe cases, employment may never be a possibility due(p) to natural physical limitations. For these patients, occupational therapy rehabilitation may act to teach them tasks as basic as eating with a fork and spoon or bathing themselves.Counselling for mentally ill, aggressive or depressed patients is excessively a type of occupational therapy rehabilitation. Often, an employer will require specific workers to undergo this type of treatment to help them interact more efficiently with co-workers, plosive motivated on the job, or to fully rehabilitate them after a traumatic experience or depressive episode. This helps patients overcome emotional issues that may jam job action or social development, and allows them to effectively express issues and interact with customers or clients.Sometimes occupational therapy rehabilitation involve s specific job training courses. This method may be used for mentally handicapped or brain damaged individuals, or those who have lost employment due to emotional or mental issues. Job training helps patients learn specific job related skills including how to perform basic job duties like lifting or typing, as well as how to interact with co-workers and customers.In some cases, an occupational therapist or counsellor may be hired to try a dispute or problem between colleagues or groups within a workplace. This may include argumentative co-workers who are aggressive to the lay of hindered job performance. In these situations, the therapist will teach proper make do methods for dealing with anger and jealously in the workforce in the form of individual counselling sessions, seminars, or group therapy meetings.Therapists and doctors often work unneurotic in occupational therapy rehabilitation for their patients. A combination of therapies and medications may be used in order to obt ain full rehabilitative re resolvings. The first goal of these tactics is to allow patients to live and work as normal as possible in society.Disability and RehabilitationWhen looking at Occupational therapy in terms of rehabilitation, the experts agree that effective rehabilitation of the physically disabled involved helping the client to regain physical and social functions lost through injury or disease. Haber (1973) argues that disability should be conceptualised and thrifty by functional in capacities. Disability is then the unfitness to perform vulgar role activities as a result of a physical or mental impairment (loss of function) of long-term duration (Haber and Smith, 1971)One view of rehabilitation success is taken by Ludwig and Adams (1968) and Diamond et al. (1968) who use patient cooperation and participation in treatment as a measure of outcome. adoption of the throw away role implies that the patient cooperate and participate in the treatment process as outline d by the experts so that he can get better (Parsons, 1951 1975). In this context, the good and successful patient is judged to be the person who complies with the sick role. Consequently, rehabilitation success might be an artefact.There is no evidence to show that staff members tend to concentrate their efforts on those patients that they value highly or think have the best prospect of demonstrating improvement (Kelman, 1964). However, appearance of patient motivation and cooperation in the rehabilitation settings does not accurately predict independent living after discharge (Kelman and Wilner, 1962).According to nagi, when trying to define the concept of disabilities looks at the terms impairment and disability.He explores these terms by looking at how every individual lives within an environment in which he is called upon to perform certain roles and tasks. The ability and softness of people can be meaningfully understood and estimated only in terms of the degree of their fulf ilment of these roles and tasks, when an individual is described as being unable the description in incomplete till it answers the question, unable to do what?. In this sense, ability- inability constitutes an evaluatement of the individuals take aim of functioning within an environment. Two categories of inability can be delineated on the basis of the time of onset. commencement exercise are congenital inabilities. There are inborn limitations that are the result of anatomical malformations, physiological abnormalities, mental deficiencies, and/or general constitutional inadequacies. To be sure, abilities of all humans are subject tot limitations. Further more, Nagi argues, people differ greatly in degree of ability-inability without necessarily pitiful from an active disorder or a residual impairment. However, although the cutting head teacher between able and unable is hard to distinguish, the more severe conditions are usually recognised. The OASI program have defined disab ility as the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of a medically determinable impairment that is expected to be of long-continues and indefinite duration or to result in death.Potential for rehabilitation indicated a prognostic military rank of the levels of functioning the individual is capable of comer under certain circumstances. The assessment of ability-inability is obviously a necessary tincture toward the evaluation of rehabilitation potential. Occupational therapists ask patients to perform a physical body of tasks that would require the use of different types of tools and equipment. Information sought in this evaluation includes an assessment of the adjacent attributes the feature and quantity of work done, physical and social work adjustment. Experience and skills, the degree to which the impairment disables the individual in the performance of certain tasks. The rehabilitation potential of the patient. Occupational therapists are inform ed by the physician when the risk to a patients health precluded certain tasks or the totally occupational evaluation.Criticisms.Throught the mobilisation of the efforts of a highly trained team of medical including occupational therapists, rehabilitation envisions the maximum physical, mental, social, vocational and economic recovery possible. While the goals are attained many very with each individual case, Julius Roth has questioned whether such goals should legitimately be set by the patient or the therapist. The ultimate success of the program rests upon a remarkably intriguing interplay of the biogenic, sociogenic, and psychogenic components of human behaviourThe delivery of Occupational TherapyLooking at where and how occupational therapy is delivered, it is delivered in Primary and Secondary Care following the patients journey and is governed by care pathways which include formal and informal carers.The service is equitable in nettle and is provided from cradle to graves. Primary care is provided for patients at first contact with the health service. By this very nature it must be generalist, being able to cope with whatever problems arise. General practitioners are the traditional first-string care doctors but in recent years we have seen rise to a primary care team, including Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist and speech therapist to quote a few, offering a wider range of health professionals and their respective skills.The instauration Health Organisation states in its blueprint for Health for All by the Year 2000 that there should be a special emphasis on primary health care services, particularly in developing countries in which funding is even more limited.This recent emphasis on the richness of health care has further improved its status in the medical world. This is particularly true in areas in occupational therapy when there is a focus on for example, elderly in residential care, and other community care related interventions.Accor ding to Tussing Wren (2006) literature on primary care indicates a need for the following, all of which are weak or absent in the Irish systemA primary care system which addresses the health needs of a mainly healthy community rather than concentrating on intervention in episodes of illness, an emphases on disease focal point for the inveterate ill, supportive of self-care and home care, stronger evidence-based medicine, with appropriate protocols and guidelines, peer review and quality assurance, primary care infrastructure, supportive institutions, skilled substitutions, and GP interface.On the other hand secondary care is usually specialist services that require beds, and sometimes expensive equipment. Therefore it is usually based in hospitals. For example, gibe patients may be referred to Occupational Therapist by physicians after hospitalisation. Occupational therapist might then work with them in a rehabilitation centre using specific equipment to regain independence.Emer ging ServicesWithin recent years, much emphasis has been given to the development and expansion of a variety of out of hospital services for the chronically ill. However, such demonstrations continue to be slow to develop. Among the many issues involved in these attempts are those concerning the roles to be assumed by hospital or by community based agencies in relation to the provision of community care for those disabled patients who no longer require active hospital in-patient treatment. The study was undertaken in order to define a more appropriate hospital role in relation to the continuing needs for rehabilitation care of a chronically ill and disabled population discharge to the community following drawn-out hospital rehabilitation treatment. It evolved against a background of rather pessimistic clinical impressions and retrospective research probes which emphasised this populations failure to hold in optimum health and social functioning in the community despite the achieve ment of these level composition in the hospital. more specifically, concerns centred on this populations high rate of rehospitalisation, its declination in social functioning and its failure to use or to invite needed health and health related services while in the community.Acute CareOccupational therapy plays an essential role in the discerning care hospital and in other medically related facilities from the rehabilitation hospital, to sub acute sites, to extended care facilities, to the facilities of the future.Though there are issues when it comes to acute care, Torrance, (1993) states that with increasing technology and quicker discharge, the need for therapeutic occupation increases. Occupational therapists are needed to work with patients in problem solving self-care occupations amidst the constraints of the tubes, monitors and fixators to activate patients at risk because of the deleterious effects of bed rest to help patients and caregivers plan realistically from what the patients will do and for how the patients will live and care for themselves after discharge but before healing and to assess patients quality of life before and after hospitalisation.Nelson (199720) gives an exampleFor an example of the grandeur of therapeutic occupation in an acute care setting, consider a 5 month old girl born with neuromuscular disease of unknown etiology. The disease is characterised by the total absence of many of the proximal muscles, including those responsible for respiration. Picture her with multiple intubations for respiration and nutrition and with life-support monitors. The occupational therapist carefully removes her from the crib and bounces her gently while talking to her in high-pitched, rhythmical tones. In response to this occupational form, the infants adaptions are to learn to use the muscles controlling her vocal cords as she imitates the therapist to learn to use the remaining muscles in her left arm as she grabs the therapists keys and most of all to begin to learn that she too has a legitimate place in the human family. The therapist next places a piece of stuff playfully over the childs face, as in our prior example of the importance of peek-a-boo in healthy development. Like a health baby, this baby too removes the cloth and laughs. Despite the high technology setting, this baby also needs to encounter the occupational form of peek-a-boo in order to develop a sense of self and a sense of other.Therefore Occupational models of practise are needed for the acute care hospital for patients at all points on the lifer span. Since many health problems require a level of medical treatment and personal care that extends beyond the range of services normally operable in the patients home, modern society has developed formal institutions for patients care mean to help meet the more complex health needs of its members. Here, much of an occupational therapist work is carried out. Usually in rehabilitation centres within the hospital.Looking at the hospital in more detail, the work of Cockerham (2007) draws on how it is the major social institution for the delivery of health care in the modern world, and how it offers considerable advantages to both patients and society. From the individuals point of view, the injured or sick person has access to centralised medical knowledge and the greatest pasture of technology within the hospital, and from the standpoint of society, as Renee Fox and Talcott Parsons (1952) argue, that when patients are within the hospital they are protecting their family from many profuse effects of caring for the ill in the home and operates as a means of maneuver the sick and injured into medically supervised institutions where their problems are less disruptive for society as a whole.Many other concepts of Parsons have been criticised, winning his concept of the sick role, it has been argued that Parsons model cannot be applied to chronic illnesses from which patients cann ot recover. More significantly, it had been shown that access to the sick role is rather more problematic that Parsons model assumes. It has been suggested that parsons is really talking about a patient role rather then a sick role as there is a distinction between patients subjective experiences of illness and being objectively defined by doctors as having a disease.It is true to say Occupational therapy rejects a lot of Talcott Parons sick role ideas, who believes that when an individual is in the sick role he or she is exempt from responsibility for the incapacity, as it is beyond their control, and is also exempt from normal social role obligations. While this is true to say, Lober (1975214) observes that while the patient is in the hospital there is an idea of voluntary cooperation , one to one intimacy, and conditional permissiveness, for example, being temporarily excused from normal social activities on the condition of seeking medical advice and care.Coe (1978) has also arg ued that engageance is the most common form of patient adjustment to hospital routine and the most successful for short-stay patients, which most patients seeking Occupational therapy are, as the main aim is to get the patients back into society.Chronically Ill and CareAccording to Oliver (1996), as societies modernise the pith of disease is shifting from acute to chronic long-term illness and disability. While clinical medicine can treat many of these chronic conditions, it cannot cure many of them, and thus more and more people are spending a greater proportion of their lives coping with illness.Occupational therapist deal with many remainderly ill patients. According to .. Individuals with terminal illness face a number of problems related to social, emotional, spiritual and their physical well-being. Some individuals have expressed that the feeling of being a burden to family and friends is more distressing than physical pain (Lloyd, 1989). Carey, 1975 looks at how these indi viduals with terminal illnesses move up the biggest challenges in looking for satisfactory meaning in their new life situation whole facing mortality.Care for these patients has come along way, as in the past the care had primary focus on alleviating only the physical distress of the illness. Kubler-Ross (1997) describes how physicians, who are held back by their own views and feeling on death, are often unable to reach out to their demise patients to provide them with care and comfort. Therefore death in the past was some seen as a failure of medicine. This ideology began to change with the emergence of the hospice in 1967 by De Cicely Saunfers, who founded St. Christophers hospice. Today we can recognise the hospice as a work facility for the care of dying patients that supports them in living life fully and comfortably while confronting death (National Hospice Organisation, 1996).The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) (1998) states the following inn relation to occupational therapy and the hospiceThe AOTA affirms the right of a dying person to have access to a caring community within the health care system and believes in the need for personalised care of the dying individual throughout the course of a terminal illness. Occupational Therapy is based on the belief that all individuals engage in occupations Occupational therapy practitioners are uniquely qualified to help the dying person continue to engage in meaningful daily occupations within the hospice community of care. (p.872)When a patient who has a terminal illness continues to lose their ability to care for themselves and carryout usual daily activities, fostering the patients independence in self-care, work, and leisure usually becomes a top priority of intervention (Holland Tigges, 1981 Tigges, 1983 Tigges Marcil, 1988). Tigges (1983) explains a framework that looks at the human need of mastery-productive use of tie, energy, interest, and attention, this is also known as the oc cupational role of performance paradigm (9.163).Although some individuals with terminal illnesses are able to maintain many of their usual roles, its not always true for others. According to Gammage, McMahon, and Shanahan (1976), occupational therapist have a unique role in assisting patients to accept their new role as an individual with an illness and relinquish old occupational roles. Not only do occupational therapists focus on roles los