Holistic Health

According to an Arabian proverb, "Where there is health, there is hope and where there is hope, there is everything. "Hence, good health should be the highest priority but researches imply that health is pushed to a secondary position on several occassions. Inspite of the known fact that insecticide DDT helps in controlling malaria, in North Africa several communities opposed its spray. Their argument was that the sprey killed Anopheles which is responsible for malaria as well as a special type of fly that is responsible for carrying pollen from male to female date palm. In those areas date is the source of food and financial gains. This is an example of priority given to economic gains over maintaining good health. This is also true for certain behaviourial factors. Although many people know that the specific behaviour is hazardous to health yet they indulge in it. They prefer to be sick rather than controlling the behaviour. Some significant examples are smoking, alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases. There is an urgent need to place health on the higher priority.

Certainly, there are remarkable achievements in some dimensions of health. As compared to year the 1947 there is almost 42% reduction in crude death rate in United States. On other parameters of Health too we have reached our goals. We're successful in eradicating smallpox. Several infective diseases have become short and less painful. It has been shown that the change in the scenario is due to the better living conditions and avaibility of some resources like safe drinking water and not due to the change in human behaviour. Infact, during last several decades diseases related to life styles and stress-induced diseases have reached to an epidemic proportion. There is a relative and absolute increase in many diseases. The high blood pressure, coronary artery diseases, arthritis, obesity and all types of psychological diseases which also include violence, child abuse, etc. to name a few. Medical scientists, government and non-governmental organisations should focus their attention on controlling these factors. Parallel to the advancement in medical science doctors have become more and more mechanical and stereotype in treating the patients. They deal with a patient as if they are treating a robot. As they depend increasingly on sophisticated diagnostic tests and specialised knowledge, patients tend to loose their identity as human beings.

In this modern era the conviction was rapidly spreading that disease is just like a fault in the machine and that the doctor's job is to just repair the fault. My professor of physiology told us that in the near future a day may come when a patient suffering from some problem in the right nostril will be refused treatment because the super specialist would be a doctor of the left nostril. Fortunately, in the last couple of decades it has been felt that patients need to be treated as a whole. Emotions, personality, life-style, behaviour, etc. plays a very important role in causing the disease and hence there is a need to take care of these factors as well if one desires long term improvement in the patient's condition. Extensive researches in the field of stress and the significance of doctor-patient relationship is that of transforming the approach of some medical personnels.

The word 'Holistic' was described by Jan C. Smurt, which means whole or complete. It is only after a few decades that the seed of holistic health movement was sown in California, USA. Now, the movement continues to spread and blossom throughout the world. Holistic Health Associations have also been established in several countries across the globe.    

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