WHAT IS HOLISTIC MEDICINE?
Medical students will often come across the term Holistic medicine. So what is Holistic medicine? Holistic medicines focuses on how the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements of a person are interconnected. Holistic medicine is about treating the whole person rather than simply managing the physical aspects of an ailment. We all know that specific ailments/diseases can be caused by a physical agent, emotional cause or spiritual dysfunction or a combination. Consider
hypertension which can be caused by a variety of factors such as:
a) A variety of physical factors which are treated by a range of pharmaceuticals ( depending on the pharmacological target) such as Thiazides, Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), Beta-blockers, Calcium channel blockers, Renin inhibitors etc. b) Emotional factors i.e. stress which can cause repeated blood pressure elevations, as well as stimulation of the nervous system to produce large amounts of vasoconstricting hormones that increase blood pressure. c) Spirituality – research evidence clearly demonstrates that spiritual experiences such as meditation, regular church worship, etc fosters positive emotions in people and helps the individual resist the negative health effects of stress. So one may argue that a lack of spirituality may lead to emotional imbalance that in turn causes hypertension and associated diseases. A Holistic medicine practitioner will look at all these aspects to determine the root cause of disease and treat accordingly through promoting healthy lifestyle habits such as exercising, eating a nutritious diet, and advocate spiritual counselling, prayer, yoga and various complementary therapies such as art therapy, hypnosis, imagery, meditation, psychotherapy etc. With the growing demand for Holistic healthcare by the consumer, many medical students are turning holistic medicine training programs. For example, in the US, more than 20 percent of U.S. medical students currently attend osteopathic medical schools and this percentage is expected to increase.