Holistic Health is a philosophy of healthcare that encompasses the body, mind, and spirit connection of one’s being. The concept holds that the three components are closely interconnected and equally important to treatment, healing, and wellness. Holistic health is increasingly being used in mainstream medical practice as part of integrative patient care. Holistic Health is viewed as an approach to how treatment should be applied. It is based on the premise that achieving and maintaining good health requires more than just taking care of the various singular components that make up the physical body but incorporating aspects such as emotional and spiritual well-being. The goal is on the entire person.
Research on …show more content…
Percival stated: "The feeling and emotions of the patients require to be known and to be attended to, no less than the symptoms of their diseases."(Perciva 1803). More recently, John Macleod in his book 'Clinical Examination', first published in 1964, also commented that "we should aim to be holistic in our care".[8] Also, the seminal work by Michael Balint, 'The Doctor, the Patient and his Illness', first published in 1957, represents an important landmark in seeing the patient as a whole rather than as isolated pathology.[9] Illness is not just an isolated physical disorder or random event. Perhaps bad habits start in medical school, referring to a patient as "the mitral stenosis in bed 7" or "the lobar pneumonia in bed …show more content…
Healing is the journey toward holism. While preventing illness is important, Holistic Health focuses on reaching higher levels of wellness. By using the health illness continuum the concept can be applied as follows. The right half of the wellness continuum invites people to constantly explore which everyday actions work for them and discovering what is appropriate to move them toward maximum well-being. When disease and chronic conditions do occur, the Holistic Health concept can also be applied. The healthcare professionals using the holistic approach work in partnership with the patients. They recommend treatments that support the body’s natural healing system and consider the whole person and the whole situation.A holistic approach to healing goes beyond just eliminating symptoms. For example, taking an aspirin for a headache only takes away the pain but the real problem causing the headache still exists. In holistic care the symptom (headache) is considered a message that something needs attention. So, the symptom is used as a guide to look below the surface for the root cause in the cause of headache may be caused by dehydration, stress, brain tumor etc. Then what really needs attention can be addressed and not just the