Alternative Medicine, also called unconventional medicine, therapeutic practices, techniques, and beliefs that are outside the realm of mainstream Western health care

Alternative Medicine, also called unconventional medicine, therapeutic practices, techniques, and beliefs that are outside the realm of mainstream Western health care. Alternative medicine emphasizes therapies that improve quality of life, prevent disease, and address conditions that conventional medicine has limited success in curing, such as chronic back pain and certain cancers. Proponents of alternative medicine believe that these approaches to healing are safer and more natural and have been shown through experience to work. In certain countries, alternative medical practices are the most widely used methods of health care. However, many practitioners of modern conventional medicine believe these practices are unorthodox and unproven.1 Acupuncture, a Chinese traditional medicine dating from 200-100 BC, involves stimulating specific points in the body for therapeutic purposes. Puncturing the skin with a needle is the usual method of application, but acupuncturists may also use heat, pressure, friction, suction, or impulses of electromagnetic energy to stimulate acupuncture points. Stimulated acupuncture points alter the chemical neurotransmitters released and the therapeutic effects result from the associated changes in the chemical balance of the body. Acupuncture is used for many ailments, including chronic pain, drug addiction, arthritis, chemotherapy-induced nausea,

  • Word count: 1509
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Schizophrenia is an internal disease caused by fundamental organizational differences in the brain, and is triggered by drug use, stress, and one's environment, thus making it difficult to diagnose.

ABSTRACT Though the dysfunction of central dopamine system has been proposed, the pathogenesis of schizophrenia is still uncertain partly due to limited accessibility to dopamine receptor. Many studies in humans documented that appropriate stimulation of dopamine D1 receptors in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is critical for working memory processing, attention span, perseverance, planning, judgment, impulse control, organization, self-monitoring and supervision. It also is responsible for problem solving, critical thinking, forward thinking, learning from experiences and mistakes, ability to feel and express emotions, influences the limbic system, empathy and internal supervision . The dopamine hypothesis that occurs in patients with schizophrenia is a core feature of this illness. Imagine for the moment that your daughter just left for college and you hear voices inside your head shouting, "You'll never see her again, you have been a bad mother, she'll die." Or, what if you saw dinosaurs on the street and live animals in your refrigerator? These are actually experiences that have plagued Mrs. X for almost three decades. Mrs. X suffers the disorder known as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is an internal disease caused by fundamental organizational differences in the brain, and is triggered by drug use, stress, and one's environment, thus making it difficult to

  • Word count: 2207
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Crohn's disease

Introduction A 17 year old woman, born and raised in Russia, was admitted to the hospital with a 5 month history of bloody diarrhoea, weight loss of 9 kg, weakness, anorexia, low grade fever and episodes of pain in the right lower abdominal quadrant. There was no family history of inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer. Physical examination revealed mild abdominal tenderness, mostly confined to the right lower quadrant. The laboratory tests showed a mild anaemia of 10.5 haemoglobin (normal is11.5 to 15.5 g/dl), a serum ferritin of 8.75 (normal is12-237 ng/ml) and a serum folate of 4.9 ng/ml (normal is 5.3-14.4 ng/ml). Stool samples were negative for infectious organisms. A pregnancy test was also negative. The health care professional suspected that Crohn's disease was the cause of the symptoms and further investigations to confirm diagnosis was suggested. This report will discuss the pathway of the patient undergoing various diagnostic imaging investigations in the initial diagnosis of Crohn's disease. What is Crohn's Disease? Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease affecting any part of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus frequently leading to discontinuous inflammation, bowel strictures, ileus and fistulas (Podolsky, 2002). About 31,000 people in England and 1,800 in Wales have Crohn's disease and there are about 2,650 new cases each

  • Word count: 3587
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

How Smoking Damages the Health.

How Smoking Damages the Health Inhaling hot smoke-filled air through the mouth and via the bronchi into the lungs pollutes the respiratory system. The natural cleaning system of the ciliary cells of the bronchial lining becomes damaged and inactive. It also damages the alveoli, making it difficult to breath. Cigarette smoke contains around four thousand chemicals, many of which are known to be highly poisonous and very harmful - over 40 are known to cause cancer. The main three constituents are: * Tar- When tobacco smoke cools, a dark, sticky tar is formed. This collects in the smoker's lungs. It lines the lungs and prevents gaseous exchange. * Nicotine-Nicotine is a powerful drug which smoker's become addicted to very quickly. It is absorbed into the blood and is spread through the blood vessels to other parts of the body. It can have a damaging effect on the circulatory system. * Carbon Monoxide-Carbon Monoxide combines with haemoglobin more readily than oxygen. This means that a smoker's blood has less red blood cells free to carry oxygen so the heart has to work harder to provide the body's cells with the amount of oxygen they need. The other chemicals found in a cigarette include: • Benzene, a gasoline additive found in paints, paint thinners, adhesives and plastics. You can be exposed to benzene fumes while pumping gas. • Asbestos, It is found in acoustic

  • Word count: 981
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Birth Asphyxia-PBL Writeup

PBL Writeup-Birth Asphyxia Faraaz de Belder A male baby at term is delivered using forceps. There had been Type 2 dips on the fetal heart rate tracing during the labour, and the baby was born covered in meconium. He did not breathe. The neonatologist arrived to resuscitate the baby, but after 20 minutes the baby still only had a heart rate of 60 per minute and was only giving occasional gasps. Apgar scores at 1, 5, and 10 minutes were 0, 1 and 1. He was attached to a ventilator and transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit. Regular respirations were established and he required no further ventilation after 12 hours. However, he remained very jittery with a high-pitched cry and the nurses reported that he felt floppy. On the 2nd day he was noticed to have tonic-clonic convulsions and apnoeic attacks. Blood glucose at the time was 3mmol/l. He required ventilation again but the tonic-clonic convulsions continued despite large doses of phenobarbitone. An urgent MRI scan showed possible areas of infarction of both cerebral hemispheres and evidence of periventricular leucomalacia, indicating a poor prognosis. The neonatologist arranged to talk to the parents about the prognosis, and to discuss continuation of life support with them. Objectives . Terms: APGAR scoring, Type 2 Dips, Periventricular leucomalacia 2. What are the normal foetal and neonate vital

  • Word count: 2588
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Praxis Note on Evaluating the outcome

Look back Being in my community placement for the past four weeks, I have met many different staff in the home and many of them are very kind hearted people. They know the resident's need and they do what they can to strive for that goal. I feel very fortunate to see so many kind-hearted staff in the home where the staffs are very strong-minded and will advocate for the resident's need. They know how to calm these resident down when there are agitated and restlessness, knows what these resident like to eat and drink and they even knows their prefer bathroom routine. My point is that these staffs know their residents very well. When so many people and kind-hearted and are working together, there is no doubt that these residents are not lacking of any basic necessities. What troubles me in the past is that I see some of the resident's dignity and right has been neglected. Elaborate Providing care in the community is challenging. Often different people has their own ways of thinking, they work and prioritizes differently. It is not uncommon for different staffs to have their own opinion towards a similar task or situation. The problem is when this situation arises in a health care setting, there is no one person can who is right or wrong and decide what the best approach is that is the most beneficial for the resident. In my past couple of weeks in the home, I have seen

  • Word count: 1569
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Physiological approaches to stress management.

Physiological approaches to stress management use techniques designed to change the activity of the body's stress response system. Two physiological methods for stress management include drugs and biofeedback. There are two types of drugs that ca be used in stress management; benzodiazepines (BZs) and Beta-blockers. BZs are a group of drugs that are commonly used to treat anxiety. BZs slow down the activity of the central nervous system. This is done by enhancing the activity of the natural biochemical substance called GABA. GABA is the body's natural form off anxiety relief. This enhancement is achieved in several ways. One such way is that GABA slows down nerve cell activity. It allows chloride ions into neurons, slowing the activity if the neuron which causes relaxation. Another way is that GABA also reduces serotonin activity. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that has an arousing effect people who are depressed have low levels of serotonin and one form of treatment is to take drugs. People with anxiety need to reduce levels of serotonin which is done by GABA, which then decreases arousal of neurons, causing reduced anxiety. BZs imitate the activity if GABA and therefore reduce arousal of the nervous system and reduce anxiety. Beta-blockers act on the sympathetic nervous system rather than the brain. Stress leads to the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system and this

  • Word count: 954
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

The Psychodynamic Approach - or What Freud Really Thought

The Psychodynamic Approach - or What Freud Really Thought Many of you may be wondering how it is that I claim to know the impossible: what Freud really thought. The truth is, of course I don't. It's fun to try though, isn't it? Well then, now that we've cleared that up, let us begin. I feel that a bit of history would be fitting at this point. Freud, or Sigmund as I shall call him for now (I always say familiarity is the best route to understanding) was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1865. His family background was Jewish, but his father was a freethinker and Sigmund an avowed atheist. Sigmund's father and first wife had two sons, both more than twenty years older than 'little Sigmund'. Sigmund was passionately interested in science, so it was somewhat a disappointment to him that the only professions open to Jewish men at the time were medicine or law. He would have much preferred neurophysical research. However, Sigmund was engaged and needed to earn enough to support a family before he could marry, so he determined to go into private practice with a speciality in neurology. During his training, Sigmund made friends with Josef Breuer, another physician and physiologist. They often discussed medical cases together, and it is through this that Sigmund first encountered hysteria. Breuer used the 'talking cure' on his patients, which involved hypnosis under which

  • Word count: 1164
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

Aspirin and Paracetamol

Aspirin and Paracetamol In 1763, a clergyman named Edmund Stone claimed that he had found the remedy to fevers, common amongst those who lived in damp areas. He stated that the answer lay in the powdered bark of willow trees. Although this philosophy failed to make it into mainstream medicine, his discovery about the willow bark helped drive the development of one of the most widely used drugs in the world today. Willow bark is a rich source of salicylates, the class of compounds to which acetylsalicylate, commonly known as aspirin, belongs. For many years, people have been taking aspirin to reduce fever and reduce pain, and new benefits of the drug are still emerging. It's blood thinning properties make it an excellent long-term treatment to help prevent heart attacks and strokes, and it now appears that the drug reduces the chances of cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Many scientists believe that aspirin has a medical role much greater then is presently appreciated. Studies have revealed that mankind's natural diet would once have contained a small but significant amount of salicylates from fruit and vegetables. Many people now regard salicylate as a micronutrient, similar to vitamins and antioxidants, that are essential for maintaining good health into old age. Aspirin has many uses. Since it was first patented in 1899 by a German pharmaceutical company named "Bayer",

  • Word count: 2650
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay

FactorsWhen looking at Susan's depression there are three sets of factors that need to be considered; predisposing, precipitating

Types of depression When looking at depression there are three different kinds of depression; major depression, dysthymia and bipolar depression. Major depression interferes with your ability to work, eat, sleep, and enjoy activities that was once found pleasurable. Dysthymia is a long term depression; the symptoms are not disabling but keep the individual from feeling well or happy with themselves. Bipolar depression is also known as manic depressive illness, this is when the individual gets episodes of extreme highs and complete lows, these mood changes can occur quickly. With regards to the case study major depression seems to be the category Susan falls intoLooking at depression it is an illness that affects the mood, body and thoughts of a person, it affects the person in the everyday life. Within this case study it is presented that Susan becomes increasingly pessimistic and stressed at work, these in themselves are sure signs of depression. When looking at depression there are three different kinds of depression; major depression, dysthymia and bipolar depression. Major depression interferes with your ability to work, eat, sleep, and enjoy activities that was once found pleasurable. Dysthymia is a long term depression; the symptoms are not disabling but keep the individual from feeling well or happy with themselves. Bipolar depression is also known as manic depressive

  • Word count: 2001
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
Access this essay