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Holistic, alternative and complementary medicine

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What is holistic medicine?

Holistic medicine (health) is more than just an alternative medicine or just a herbal medicine. Holistic medicine supports reaching higher levels of wellness as well as preventing illness. Not just with nutritional supplements, vitamins or herbs. Most important factor is your lifestyle. People enjoy the vitality and well-being that results from their positive lifestyle changes, and are motivated to continue this process throughout their lives. Holistic medicine (health) is actually an approach to life. Rather than focusing on illness or specific parts of the body, this ancient approach to health considers the whole person and how he or she interacts with his or her environment. It emphasizes the connection of mind, body, and spirit. The goal is to achieve maximum well-being, where everything is functioning the very best that is possible. With Holistic Health people accept responsibility for their own level of well-being, and everyday choices are used to take charge of one’s own health.

A recent positive trend has been in the medical schools, which are beginning to invite holistic physicians to lecture or to develop programs in the schools to complement their more conventional curricula. The National Institute of Health has developed an office to support and research holistic and alternative medicine practices. Some states are now passing laws to protect and support the practices of holistic providers, as they have sometimes been the subject of harassment by their more conservative colleagues, for their different orientation, techniques, and approaches to health care. With these current trends, the changing needs and perceptions by a more informed public, and the increasing scientific validation of holistic approaches, I see the holistic paradigm coming of agethe new frontier of health care and human awareness.

What is alternative and what is complementary medicine?

Alternative medicine: practices used instead of standard medical treatments. Alternative medicine is distinct from complementary medicine which is meant to accompany, not to replace, standard medical practices. Alternative medical practices are generally not recognized by the medical community as standard or conventional medical approaches. Alternative medicine includes nutritional supplements, megadose vitamins, herbal preparations, special teas, massage therapy, magnet therapy, and spiritual healing.

Integration of complementary and alternative medicine therapies (CAM) with conventional medicine is occurring in hospitals and physicians offices, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are covering CAM therapies, insurance coverage for CAM is increasing, and integrative medicine centers and clinics are being established, many with close ties to medical schools and teaching hospitals. In determining what care to provide, the goal should be comprehensive care that uses the best scientific evidence available regarding benefits and harm, encourages a focus on healing, recognizes the importance of compassion and caring, emphasizes the centrality of relationship-based care, encourages patients to share in decision making about therapeutic options, and promotes choices in care that can include complementary therapies where appropriate.

Numerous approaches to delivering integrative medicine have evolved. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States identifies an urgent need for health systems research that focuses on identifying the elements of these models, the outcomes of care delivered in these models, and whether these models are cost-effective when compared to conventional practice settings.

It outlines areas of research in convention and CAM therapies, ways of integrating these therapies, development of curriculum that provides further education to health professionals, and an amendment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act to improve quality, accurate labeling, research into use of supplements, incentives for privately funded research into their efficacy, and consumer protection against all potential hazards.

The Perfect System Of Chest Xray Interpretation In Emergency Medicine

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In emergency medicine, you need a system, not just with the radiographs, but also with the EKGs. You need a very consistent systematic approach so you will not miss anything. I would like to offer you Johns RIPT ROARing ABCs approach. Again, I would suggest you apply this with every radiograph that you interpret for the rest of your career, as well as the two-minute rule. So, if you apply this system and take two minutes out of your day to apply this system to every chest radiograph, you will become more confident and more proficient at evaluation chest radiographs.

Then we come to the main portion of CXR interpretation. Now, the RIPT stands for evaluation of the quality of the radiograph. R is rotation. I is inspiration. P is penetration. T is technique.

Lets talk about that in more detail. With the R for rotation, we want to see if the clavicles line up like the site on a gun behind the spinous process. There should be equal distance between the spinous process and the end of the clavicle, the medial aspect of the clavicle. If a patient is twisted and their right shoulder is closer to the x-ray beams and further away from the film than the left shoulder, there will be distortion in anatomy. I am not saying you disqualify a film if it is moderately rotated, but you need to weigh that in when you review the film. If you are evaluated and elderly lady with very severe kyphosis, they will be rotated to some degree and you just have to weigh that in when reviewing the films. Inspiration is where we actually count the ribs to make sure we see between 9 and 11 ribs. The deeper of a breath they take, the more of the lungs you will be able to see. In someone who does not take a deep breath, again someone who is demented and cannot follow instructions, you will maybe only see six ribs and will really have to weigh in your thought process that they may have pathology lying in the posteroinferior aspects of the lungs that we would not be able to see on a PA radiograph, and a lateral x-ray would be much more helpful. P is penetration where we want to see the vertebral bodies behind the heart. If the heart is so white or under-penetrated that we cannot see the vertebral bodies, we call this film under-penetrated and is going to be more difficult to interpret the radiograph as opposed to a film that is over-penetrated which means that the film is excessively black. Those films are easier to read. When working as a house officer, five years in, I really thought I was becoming good at what I did. I had a consistent problem of not telling if the radiograph was under-penetrated versus congestive heart failure. So, I turned to my senior colleagues, people who were house officer PAs for 20 years, and asked that question. How can you tell if it is really congestive heart failure versus under-penetrated? I was really expecting these great words of wisdom to help me differentiate between them. Both of them looked at me and said, You know, John, I had a tough time with that too. So, with that said, an under-penetrated film can fool you into thinking it is congestive heart failure. But, you really need to weigh in whether you can see the vertebral bodies or not and use pretest probability. How does the patient look? T is for technique which is a PA film versus an AP film. PA means posterior-anterior, and AP means anterior-posterior. If you hold your hand in front of a flashlight that is shining against a wall, you will understand the concept of posterior and anterior. The flashlight beams are the x-ray beams, and the wall is the film. You hand’s shadow is what the actual radiograph will be. Now, if you take your hand and put it very close to the wall, your shadow is going to be quite crisp and the shadow is going to be almost the exact size of your hand. If you take your hand and move it back towards the flashlight, the shadow will become bigger and will become blurred. It is that same concept that has to do with interpreting a posterior-anterior film versus an anterior-posterior film. Now, the heart lies anterior in the chest, so if you are doing and AP film which means the beam of the x-ray is going from the anterior to the posterior. WIth a portable CXR the heart is more posterior in the chest wall, therefore the heart will be more enlarged and more hazy. A posterior-anterior film is when the patient actually turns their back, puts their back up to the film, and the x-ray beams go posterior-anterior. That is a more perfect film, and you get a better view of the heart, a crisper heart shadow, and therefore a PA film is a much better film than the AP film. YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR TIME! You walk up to a film and take 2 minutes to apply the RIP’T, ROARing ABCs. RIPT is rotation, inspiration, penetration and technique.

We are going to discuss ROAR. This is the easy one. ROAR stands for right patient, old x-rays, alignment and right date. This is where you are going to spend just a 10-20 seconds validating the data, making sure that you do indeed have the right patient, are there old x-rays to compare it with, if the film is hung correctly, and that you have the right date. Now, for the past few years I have been working at smaller hospitals and when I order an x-ray it may be the only one that x-ray has done in the last 10-15 minutes. At a bigger hospital, you do an x-ray, go down to look at it, and one is hanging. If you are assuming this is your patients film, you are going to get burned sooner or later. So, take the time to ensure that you have the right dated, the right patient and if there are old films to compare with, you just want them handy and if any abnormalities, you can compare and contrast them. Here is a pearl for you. If you are evaluating a radiograph, and in the review of the old films, you see multiple different films of multiple different body systems (and there is not a good explaniation, such that the patient is a stunt bike rider) it implies to me the patient derives secondary gain from the medical system (in other words, they are crazy.)

Nuclear Medicine Specialist in Arizona

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Nuclear medicine specialists in Arizona engage in a number of different medical areas of expertise. They handle all matters of nuclear medicine tests. They conduct and interpret the results of lung scans, bone scans, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans and positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

These diagnostic tests are very wonderful for nuclear medicine specialists and their patients alike, due to the fact that they are almost always both noninvasive and painless for patients. They are very useful for physicians due to the fact that they are more useful than normal radiology procedures. They offer more detailed scans than normal radiology procedures, which makes them often able to detect abnormalities earlier in the disease process.

Nuclear medicine tests are used to look at the brain, heart, kidneys, thyroid, kidney, gallbladder, bones and gastrointestinal (GI) tract. They can be used to locate blockages and infections in the body. They are also used to evaluate the organ function and blood flow. Other uses are to find arthritis, tumors, bone fractures and other disorders or injuries.

When nuclear medicine specialists in Arizona conduct a test, they inject a tiny amount of a radioactive substance into the patients body. This radioactive substance can be put into the patients body through intravenous, oral or pulmonary means. Once in the body, the radioactive substance distributes throughout the body in different amounts. It also emits gamma rays.

The gamma rays can be detected by some kind of special device, like a probe or a scanner. The device detects the amount of gamma rays in the area of the body that is being focused upon, and then a computer uses the information to create images of the body. Nuclear medicine specialists then study the images, thereby detecting abnormalities in the body.

As well as performing these tests, specialists can also administer forms of therapy with nuclear medicine. For example, one popular treatment is iodine therapy. During this treatment, the patient swallows radioactive iodine. The radioactive iodine is then absorbed by the thyroid gland, which has the wonderful benefit of destroying any abnormal tissue that is present in the patients thyroid gland. There are many thyroid conditions that will benefit from this iodine therapy, such as Graves disease, hyperthyroidism, goiters, thyroid cancer and thyroid nodules.

Nuclear medicine specialists need to follow stringent safety protocols to avoid radiation exposure. They use devices to constantly monitor radiation levels. They also wear safety gear such as aprons and shields that contain lead that block radiation. They also use equipment such as syringes and containers containing lead.

How Aerospace Medicine in George Keeps Air Travelers in Top Shape

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Aimed at treating those people who are involved in some way with the space and aviation fields, aerospace medicine is a sub-specialty of preventive or occupational medicine. Its main focus is to improve health, safety and ultimately job performance, while preventing illnesses and other medical problems for those who are part of the air and space travel industry. It also focuses on civilian air travelers and any conditions they might have while in the air. With providers who focus on these types of issues, aerospace medicine is an area of health care that can keep its employees as well as the rest of the world safe and in top condition.

Aerospace medicine in Georgia is no less focused on keeping those in its care healthy than any other state. The highly focused field employs doctors throughout the state who treat air crews and pilots for the conditions to which these patients are susceptible. Also called aviation medicine, this specialized field employs physicians who are normally referred to as flight surgeons or aviation medical examiners, depending on the doctors area of specialty.

Some types of conditions treated by these practitioners are radiation exposure, micro gravity afflictions and hypoxic conditions that happen when the body is deprived of oxygen. These types of ailments can be frequent causes of physical problems in aerospace medicine. In Georgia, healthcare givers are quite knowledgeable in the afflictions that are suffered by patients in this medical field.

Those employed in the air or space travel fields who are considering relocating to Georgia need not worry about any health issues related to their jobs. Aerospace medicine in Georgia is not lacking in facilities, schooling or doctors available to treat patients. Anyone considering a career in Georgia’s branches of this industry can rest assured their medical needs will be cared for by top physicians.

Georgia is also a place for doctors interested in practicing aerospace medicine, with a field that is on the cutting edge of medical technology and science. Georgia can make an inviting state for schooling, as well as treatment. The state offers a relatively mild climate, with an popular environment for most who travel there. Healthcare employees, as well as air travel employees, are both bound to find a comfortable atmosphere in which to work.

Aerospace medicine physicians face daily challenges across the spectrum that cover concerns with astronaut life support issues to ear problems with air travelers. It is a specialized field, and Georgia is a practical location for doctors who want to specialize in it.

Breakthrough Technology Helps Chiropractors And Other Health Providers Bring Chinese Medicine Into

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Every day thousands of people head to their chiropractor’s office for an adjustment. They have a variety of complaints and ailments and the chiropractor is there to assist them in feeling better. But what if chiropractic could be combined with other alternative therapies to assist these patients to obtain optimum health and wellness?

That’s the question that chief medical officer of Intemedica, John Diamond, is answering. Dr. Diamond, a physician trained as a pathologist, got into alternative healing almost twenty years ago as a result of his own health crises. “As far as I’m concerned, complementary and alternative medicine takes care of 80% of health issues in the general population.”

Diamond believes the medical field is about to undergo an amazing transformation in the way it operates and delivers healing to patients. He believes primary care physicians will become obsolete by the year 2015 and in their place will spring alternative healing concepts such as chiropractors, Chinese medicine practitioners, acupuncturists and naturopaths. This is in reaction to the insurance crises going on in our country today. “The way medicine is going right now we’re moving away from the disease model. We’re moving to what we call the stress and coping model.” Diamond believes that alternative and natural healing methods will best complement these changing models.

Dr. Diamond, working with other individuals, has come up with a new and fascinating way to utilize this stress and coping model with what he calls GSR biofeedback, a process similar to electro acupuncture. By simply placing a hand in an electrical cradle, the machine interrogates the patient’s body and provides a wealth of information about where the stresses are occurring in the body. Connected to a computer program, information is also compiled regarding which specific formulas of Chinese herbs would best be suited to help the patient with whatever their specific needs are – and all in about three and a half minutes.

How can chiropractors utilize this technology in their offices and how can it help them not only increase value for their patients but also increase their bottom line? According to Diamond it’s simple. “We have a whole system that is very easily put into anybody’s office with minimal outlay,” says Diamond.

Once doctors have this equipment and stock in their offices, it takes only about thirty minutes to learn how to use it. All it takes is the ability to point and click the mouse. All updates to the software are done via the internet, as well as anything that’s added to the program.

But can this program really add value to the chiropractic practice? Do alternative healing methods really work? According to Diamond the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. Any staff member, such as a chiropractic assistant, can operate the equipment, which leaves the chiropractor free to do adjustments. Also, Diamond has had independent data taken on the effectiveness of his healing methods and found that out of 100,000 patient visits over the last eighteen years, the average efficacy of his formulas was 86% – some formulas were as high as 97%. He’s also found that with the minimum outlay of investment, the average practice can see anywhere between $5-8000 a month in extra income while providing added value for their patients.

Concerning any negative side effects, Diamond also has found there are fairly few. With sensitive patients the Chinese herbs can cause gastric irritation and in some patients there may be a problem with over detoxification, but these negatives are easily resolved. Says Diamond, “Traditional Chinese medicine is easily adapted to our physiology because it’s plant based. Anything plant based we’re very used to responding to. It’s not really an issue.”

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