Holistic Health Medicine to Achieve Complete Health

Nowadays, many people are showing truth on holistic health approach but few of them understand the entire concept of holistic health medicine. With the increasing complexity of life, many people are looking towards a holistic approach to health and moving in the direction of achieving complete health and wellness. This kind of healthcare concept is not only popular among aged people but youngsters too. There has been significant increase in the number of people joining yoga classes and Ayurveda sessions.

The traditional system of health care is based on the concept that a disease can only be treated by finding out the main cause of the disease that causes the problem and supply appropriate medicine to come out of the illness in a specific time. On the other hand, the holistic health medicine approaches defines that there are various factors that play a crucial role in healing from the certain ailment.

Since ages, our ancestors were following the concept of holistic health medicine to treat various illnesses. The simple base of holistic health medicine is that there are several factors such as emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual. These factors must be taken into consideration while devising an alternative therapy for a particular disease. There are primarily two types of approaches in the medical dictionary to treat an illness – physical or mental. A physical approach focuses on the use of medicines to help the patient come out of issues whereas the mental approach concentrates on finding the genuine cause to the problem and considering every aspect related to the issue.

The ultimate aim of holistic health medicine approach is to help the people achieve complete health and wellness rather than just eradicating the pain or particular problem temporarily. For instance, there are different types of medicines available in the market, but doing a short session of meditation can help you get rid of depression completely.

Divine Wellness is a well known name in the field of holistic health therapy. Divine Wellness is providing high quality consulting and e-learning services on herbal alternative medicine and alternative holistic health medicine.

Visit our website for more information on Yoga classes, Holistic health medicine and Alternative holistic health.

The Economic Relationships of Health Care

Before starting my article I will like to say a few words about health.

“Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.”
“He, who has health, has hope. And he, who has hope, has everything.”
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”

he Comprehensive Overview on the Principles, Concepts and Applied Theories in Health Economics: The Economic Relationships of Health Care

In order to understand the role of economics in relation to health care, we have to  understand the basic structure and functions of economics. The concept of economics is concerned with describing the interrelationship between different individuals and organizations related to production and consumption of goods and services. The main point of the study of these interrelationships is to explain how the institutional framework and the rules of behavior specified for the individuals and organizations influence the final outcome.

1. The economic need of the individual for health care is more on the concern of medical treatment .Hence, the idea of consumption explains the health care services provided in the medical care centers (hospital and clinics) and the medicines for the medical treatment and recovery on health.

2. The organization provides the health care services for the confinement of the patients. The public health sector provides the infrastructures such as hospitals, health clinics and other medical services while the private health sector provides highly competitive medical centers on quality health care to attract the different individual to avail the health services.

Economic Relationships of Health Care

1. Economic Production. .It is the creation of manufactured products and services that has market price and value which is being created by the economic demand in the society. This is consider as economic suppliers and producers with other terms such as traders, proprietors, investors, capitalists, and managers.

HEALTH CARE : The production and investment side of the establishments of hospitals and medical centers with the complete facilities, equipment and amenities for the quality health services. This is the cost of production for health care services to provide the medical diagnosis and tools to identify the medical problems of the patients.

2. Economic Revenue. It is the income produce by the selling of particular products and services in the market. This provides information about the projected income, assets and liabilities, profitability indicators, including Cost-Benefit Analysis or Ratio(CBA), Cost Effective Analysis (CEA),and Cost Utility Analysis ( CUA.)

HEALTH CARE : The hospital and medical centers are establish to provide quality health care for the substantial health demand. The revenue of the health care services are the following:

a) The user fee for the health care institution- The confinement, medication and treatment in the health care institutions (hospitals, clinics and medical centers) through the room rate, accommodation, medical diagnosis, and other amenities .

b) The use of medical facilities and equipment – The medical diagnosis such as x-ray radiographic equipment, sterilizing equipment, operating room instrumentation, fetal monitors, infant incubators, ecg instruments, ct scans, and other medical instruments. This is included as the operating revenue of the hospital.

c) The use of drugs for the medication and treatment of the patient and the establishment of drugstore section. The hospital provides the drugs and other medicines for the patient. This translates as the revenue as medicine is part of the product of the health care institution.

d) The physician’s fee and the medical care provided during the confinement, consultation and treatment in the health care institution. The physician provides the necessary health care support in the medical diagnosis and treatment of the patient.

The medical revenues provide the general income as the result of the collection of user fees for the medication and treatment in the hospital. The profitability of the hospital depends now the number of patients being confined and treated in the hospital.

In public sector, the financial subsidy given by the national government for the operations of public hospital, and health programs are measured by the effectiveness in relation to the prevention and control for the possible increase of patients from the target clients on this health programs. This is computed by the CEA and CUA.

3. Economic Distribution. . This refers to marketing strategy to identify the economic demand and supply. The economic distribution designates specific market delivery of the manufactured good to the potential consumers, customers or stakeholders.

HEALTH CARE : The potential market of the health care services is the use of medicines and the treatment of the patient. The economic distribution on health care relates on the geographical and territorial unit of the local government for the public health institutions. However, for the private hospital depends on the demand on health care that is usually in the urban areas wherein you can find various hospitals and medical centers. The increasing number of hospitals and medical centers may result to the increasing market delivery on medicines for the drugstores and medical equipment.

4. Economic Resources. The economic resources are the processing of producing good and services that satisfy the human needs and wants of the society. The broad categories of the economic resources such as labor, capital, entrepreneur, and natural resources.

4.1 Labor. . These are the workers, supervisors and managers who used their physical and mental effort to produce good and services in the society. The productions of goods cars, appliances, computers, air condition units, canned goods and other market products are created by services of factory workers and personnel.

HEALTH CARE : The medical personnel and staff in the delivery of health care services such as physicians, medical specialists, nurses, attendants, and other.

4.2 Capital. The needed financial resources to pay the materials, labor, equipment and facilities, machineries, and other related expenditures in order produce the specific goods and services in the market

HEALTH CARE : This is the hospital investment that may be derive through the equity of the hospital owners, and loans from the commercial banks.

4.3 Entrepreneur. The entrepreneurs invest the “save money” for self-interest to earn more from the income through ‘profit”. When the entrepreneurs organize a corporation, partnership or single proprietorship to produce the market products in the highly competitive world must see to it that the enterprise would work to earn profit.

HALTH CARE : These are the owners of the hospital, it can be classified as corporation ,partnership or even single proprietorship.

4.4 Natural Resources. The transformation of the natural and mineral resources including the land for the production of good and services with the corresponding monetary values.

HEALTH CARE : The location of the hospital including the needed material goods for the health care services.

5. Economic Sectors . These are economic institutions that are providing good and services for the society. It can be public sector or private sector in the management scarcity of resources. The public sector provides the needed public goods and services for the pro-poor programs such as the establishment of the hospitals or schools. Likewise, the private sectors exist on the “self-interest” for the profit on what is invested by the proprietors.

HEALTH CARE : The establishment of hospital to cater the needs of the poor. The rise of medical centers and private hospitals as the increasing need of medical demand from the middle class in the urban areas.

6. Economic Good and Services. It is derive from the economic demand as to the satisfaction of human wants that is being produced in the market.

Economic Demand The economic demand derives from the human needs and wants based on the capacity to purchase certain goods and services in the societal market. In this sense, there are two conditions to meet the economic demand : (1) the willingness to buy the products; and (2) the capacity of paying the amount for that particularly products. Economic Demand

The economic demands are assumed to be unlimited-because survival of human being reflects on the basic needs such as clothing, shelter, education and other physiological needs. This is the reason why there is no end to consumption needs. We need to produce the following in order to survive:

1. clothing – shirts, pants, underwear, sweat shirt, and etc.

2. food -fish, meat ,chicken egg and vegetables including water and canned products

3.shelter- house, hotel, apartelle, apartment and condominium

4. education- elementary education, high school education,and college education

5. health- medicines, hospitalization and medical check

Economic Supply.The concept of supply reflects on the goods and services needed to produce in a given market. It is more on the production of goods and services to satisfy the increasing needs and wants of the society. The main player in the study of economic supply is the entrepreneurs; the other terms are businessmen, capitalists, supplier, traders or investors.

The economic resources are always scarce in supply. We need to produce clothing, food, shelter, education and health. In clothing you can simply produce shirts or pants the resources such as a tailor (labor), garment (raw material), sewing machine ( production equipment) and factory ( land and building). There are specific cost in producing shirts and pants such as wage for the tailor, per yard cost of garment, unit cost of sewing machine and electricity for its operation, and the rent or loans paid for the construction of the factory.

HEALTH CARE: The demand of medical care focuses on the consumer demand. The confinement or treatment of patients is the example of economic demand. It is also the presence of the medical inputs in curing illness or disease of the patient such as medicines, laboratory facilities and equipment and other tangible medical products. While the economic supply of medical care is the presence of hospitals, clinic and medical centers that provide medical services to the patients who have problem about their health.

At this level, it should come as no surprise that health economics may be viewed as the economic discipline which deals with the institutional frameworks for health care (consumption, provision, financing) and the interconnections between rules and institutions on the one side and the resulting health condition in the population on the other. There still remains a somewhat loose description of the field, and it seems difficult to get closer in a few words. It may be emphasized here that health economists do necessarily deal with cost-effectiveness analysis or benefit-cost ratio analysis of health management. However, that is not the only task of a health economist. Rather, cost effectiveness is perhaps treated as the least important aspect of what a health economist can contribute.

HEALTH CARE : PUBLIC HEALTH PROGRAMS

The health care services are those activities we can get from the treating of patients in the hospital or clinic which they need to pay the hospital expenses such as physician fee, laboratory fee, hospital room fee. medical and medicine expenses. The health condition is the reason for the existence of hospital because of the presence of illness and it should treated properly once they are confine in the hospital.

Take note that in public health program your health care service is measured on the benefit of individual in absence and treatment of diseases. The economics of health welfare has significant role in the development of the health society. The health sectors can also be measured along the medication or treatment as it has financial value as to the health cost and benefits. The specific cost of the health care treatment is measured through Cost-Effective Analysis, Cost Utility and Cost-Benefit analysis which will be discussed in Economic evaluation. The use of fund is effective when you can treat more patient and there are many patients being serve from than financial fund use in the project.

Collaboration Is The Changing Face Of Health Care

For the sake of quality health care, wouldn’t it be great to be able to access professionals like doctors, nurse practitioners, dietitians and pharmacists all from one place? In recent years, the primary health system in Ontario has been changing to allow just that, with the creation of Family Health Teams (FHT).

The goal of the FHTs, says the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, is to bring together different health providers, beyond your family doctor, to offer coordinated care. Ontario has 150 FHTs, which provide convenient and accessible care to over two million patients. (ServiceOntario, 1-888-779-7767, can provide information on the nearest FHTs.)

One key to this group approach is smooth collaboration between the health professions, says Anne Coghlan, president of the Federation of Health Regulatory Colleges of Ontario (FHRCO).

“We have a responsibility to support the ability of health care professionals to work productively with each other and share information, all for the best possible care of the end client,” says Coghlan.

FHRCO is the body that comprises Ontario’s 25 health regulatory colleges, which together govern over 260,000 health professionals and hold them accountable for their conduct and practice (see www.regulatedhealthprofessions.on.ca). Coghlan notes that a 2009 amendment to the Regulated Health Professions Act specifically cites the need “to enhance inter-professional collaboration”.

“That’s increasingly vital as health care providers are working more in concert, in FHTs and in general,” she says. “For instance, our colleges are ensuring that our policies are consistent in similar areas. That will prevent conflicts in service delivery or between professions, and provide care in the safest and most effective manner.”

The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care says that FHTs aim to give people access to health care in their community virtually around the clock. That should help to relieve the reliance on emergency departments for non-emergency care.

In addition to providing direct health care services, the FHTs will focus on chronic disease management, disease prevention and health promotion in conjunction with other community-based health care organizations, such as public health units.

“It used to be that people often relied on one health care provider for the bulk of their care,” says Coghlan. “As that’s changing, the various health professions – and the regulatory bodies behind them – are working together to deliver much more seamless care.”

Public relations, corporate advertising, and noncommercial advertising

1. THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public relations (PR) is a term that is widely misunderstood and misused to describe anything from selling to hosting, when in fact it is a very specific communications process. Every company, organization, association, and government or says. They might be employees, customers, stockholders, competitors, suppliers, or Just the general population of consumers. Each of these groups may be referred to as one of the organization’s publics. The process of public relations manages the organization’s relationships with these publics.

As soon as word of the Valdez Spill got out, the PR staff at Exxon assumed responsibility for handling the barrage of phone calls from the press and the public and for managing all company communications with the media.

Simultaneously, other company departments had to deal with numerous local, state, and federal government agencies and with the community at large – not just in Valdez, Alaska, but anywhere in the world where someone was touched by the disaster. In addition, myriad other publics suddenly popped into the spotlight demanding special attention and care: Alaskan fishermen, both houses of congress, local politicians, the financial community, stockholder, employed, the local press, national networks, Exxon dealers, and environmental groups, for starters.

Companies and organizations know they must consider the public impact of their actions and decisions because of the powerful effect of public opinion. This is especially true in time of crisis, emergency, or disaster. But it is just as true for major policy decisions concerning changes in business management, pricing policies, labor negotiations, introduction of new products, or changes in distribution methods. Each of these decisions affects different groups in different ways. Conversely, effective administrators can use the power of these groups’ opinions to bring about positive changes.

In short, the purpose of ever using labeled public relations is to influence public opinion toward building goodwill and a positive reputation for the organization. In one instance, the PR effort might be to rally public support; in another, to obtain public understanding or neutrality or in still another, simply to respond to inquiries. Well-executed public relations is a long-term activity that molds good relationships between an organization and its publics. Put yourself in the position of Exxon’s top public relations manager at the time of the Valdez accident. What do you suppose was the major thrust of the PR staff’s efforts in the days immediately following the discovery of the oil spill? What might they have been called on to do?

We will discuss these and other questions in this chapter. But first it is important to understand the relationship between public relations and advertising they are so closely related but so often misunderstood.

2. CORPORATE ADVERTISING

As mentioned earlier, corporate advertising is basic tool of public relations. It includes public relations advertising, institutional advertising, corporate identity advertising, and recruitment advertising. Their use depends on the particular situation, the audience or public being addressed, and the message the firm needs to communicate.

2.1 PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVERTISING

Public relations advertising is often used when a company wishes to communicate directly with one of its important publics to express its feelings or enhance its paint of view to that particular audience. The Claris ad in exhibit 18-7, for example, targets customers investors, and stock analysts. Public relations ads are typically used to improve the company’s relations with labor, government, customers, or suppliers.

When companies sponsor art events, programs on public television, or charitable activities, they frequently place public relations ads in other media to promote the programs and their sponsorship. These ads are designed to enhance the company’s general community citizenship and to create public goodwill. The ad in Exhibit 18-8 promotes an art exhibit ant southwestern Bell’s sponsorship role.

2.2 CORPORATE/INSTITUTIONAL ADVERTISING

In recent years the term corporate advertising has come to denote that broad area of nonproduct advertising used specifically to enhance a company’s image and increase lagging awareness. The traditional term for this its institutional advertising.

Institutional or corporate ad campaigns may serve a variety of purposes – to report the company’s accomplishments, to position the company competitively in the market, to reflect a change in corporate personality, to shore up stock prices, to improve employee morale, or to avoid a communications problem with agents, suppliers, dealers, or customers.

Companies and even professional advertising people have historically questioned, or simply misunderstood, the effectiveness of corporate advertising. Retailers, in particular, have clung to the idea that institutional advertising may be pretty or nice, but that it ” doesn’t make the cash register ring “. However, a series of marketing research studies sponsored by Time magazine and conducted by the Jankelovich, Kelly & White research firm offered dramatic evidence to the contrary.

In the first of these studies, 700 middle- and upper-management executives were interviewed in the top 25 U.S. markets. The researchers evaluated five companies that were currently doing corporate advertising and five that were not. They found that the companies using corporate advertising registered significantly better awareness, familiarity, and overall impression than companies using only product advertising. In fact, the five corporate advertisers in the study drew higher ratings in every one of 16 characteristics measured, including being known for quality products, having competent management, and paying higher dividends. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the research was the fact that the five companies with no corporate advertising spent far more for total advertising than did the firms engaged in corporate advertising.

David Ogilvy, the founder and creative head of Ogilvy & Mather, has been an outspoken advocate of corporate advertising. However, he has been appalled by most corporate advertising, characterizing it as filled with ” pomposity “, ” Vague generalizations,” and ” fatuous platitudes”. Corporate advertising has also been criticized for oblivious to the needs of the audience.

Responding to such criticisms and to other forces in the marketplace, corporations have made policies and campaigns. Expenditures for this type over the last decade. The primary medium used for corporate advertising is consumer (primarily business) magazines, followed by network television.

A change in message strategy has also accompanied this increase in corporate ad spending. In the past, most corporate ads were designed primarily to create goodwill for the company. Today with many corporations diversifying and competition from for ling advertisers increasing, these same firms find their corporate ads must do much more. Their ads must accomplish specific objectives- develop awareness of the company and its activities, attract quality employees, tie a diverse product line together, and take a stand on important public issues.

Another category of corporate advertising is called advocacy advertising. Corporations use it to communicate their views on issues that affect tailors its stand to protect its position in the marketplace.

Corporate advertising is also increasingly being used to set the company up for future sales. Although this is traditionally the realm of product advertising, many advertisers have instituted ” umbrella ” campaigns that simultaneously communicate message about the products and the company. This has been termed market prep corporate advertising a GTE umbrella campaign, for example, emphasized the company’s products and services in a way that pointed up its overall technological sophistication.

Of course, no amount of image advertising can accomplish desired goals if the image does not match the corporation. As noted image consultant Clive Chajet put it, ” You can’t get away with a dies enounce between the image and the reality – at least not for long “.If, for example, a sophisticated high-tech corporation like IBM tried to project a homey, small-town family image. It would lose credibility very quickly.

2.3 CORPORATE IDENTITY ADVERTISING

Companies take pride in their logos and corporate signatures in fact, the graphic designs that identity corporate names and products are considered valuable assets of the company, and great effort is expended to protect their individuality and ownership. The corporate logo may even dominate advertisement. What does a company do, though, when it decides to change its name, logos, trademarks, or corporate signatures, as when it merges with another company? How does it communicate that change to the market it serves and to other influential publics? This is the job of corporate identity advertising.

When software publisher Productivity Products International changed its name to Stepstone Inc., it faced an interesting dilemma. It needed to advertise the change. But in Europe, a key market for the firm, a corporate name change implies that the business has gone bankrupt and is starting over with a new identity. So, rather than announcing its new name in the print media, stepson used a direct-mail campaign. It mailed an announcement of its name change to customers, prospects, investors, and the press. The campaign was a success: within days of the mailing, almost 70 customers and prospects called stepstone to find out more about the company and its products. More familiar corporate name changes from the recent past include the switch from America of Western Bank corporation to First Intestate Bankcorp; the change of Consolidated Foods to replace the premerger identities of Boroughs and Sperry.

2.4 RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

When the prime objective of corporate advertising is to attract employment applications, companies use recruitment advertising such as the Chiat/Da ad in Exhibit 18-10. Recruitment advertising is most frequently found in the classified sections of daily newspapers and is typically the responsibility of the personnel department rather than the advertising department. Recruitment advertising has become such a large field, though, that many advertising agencies now have recruitment specialists on their staffs. In fact, some agencies specialize completely in recruitment advertising, and their clients are corporate personnel managers rather than advertising department managers These agencies create, write, and place classified advertisements in news papers around the country and prepare recruitment display ads for specialized trade publications. So far in this chapter, we have discussed only the advertising of commercial organizations. But nonprofit organizations also advertise. The government charities, trade associations, and religious groups, for example, use the same kinds of creative and media strategies as their counterparts in the for-profit sector to convey messages to the public. But unlike commercial advertisers whose goal is to create awareness, image, or brand loyalty on the pan o’ consumers, noncommercial organizations use advertising to affect consume! opinions, perceptions, or behavior–with no profit motive. While commercial advertising is used to stimulate sales.

3. NONCOMMERCIAL ADVERTISING

 

Used to stimulate donations, to persuade people to vote one way or another or to bring attention to social causes.

If a specific commercial objective for a new shampoo is to change people’; buying habits, the analogous noncommercial objective for an energy conservation program might be to change people’s activity habits, such as turning off the lights. The latter is an example of demarcating, which means the advertiser is actually trying to get consumers to buy less of a product 01 service. Exhibit 18-11 compares objectives of commercial and noncommercial advertisers.

3.1 EXAMPLES OF NONCOMMERCIAL ADVERTISING

One example of noncommercial advertising conducted on a large scale is the antidrug campaign created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. In 1987, this coalition of more than 200 ad agencies, the media and many other companies in the communications business launched an all-out attack on drug abuse. The coalition set its goal as the “fundamental reshaping of social attitudes about illegal drug usage.” The .5 billion program entails the efforts of ad agencies across the country, each developing components of the campaign at their own cost.

The antidrug program includes hundreds of newspaper and magazine ads as well as 200 different commercials and print ads. The space and time allotted for the ads, all donated by the media, are worth an estimated 0 million per year.24 Similarly, most of the creative and production suppliers have donated their services.

The wide variety of ads have been created to reach specific target groups. Some are aimed at cocaine users, some at marijuana smokers; some are aimed at parents, some at children. Most ads present hard-hitting messages about the dangers of drug abuse, depicting drug use as a sure route to the hospital or the cemetery. In a TV commercial targeted at teenaged marijuana smokers, for example, the Ayer agency suggests that pot smokers are subjecting themselves to the risk of physical and mental health problems. Other commercials compare the brain on drugs to an egg in frying pan or show dead rats that have succumbed to cocaine abuse. Print ads have also emphasized the dangers of cocaine abuse, including a series of ads developed by DDB Needham Worldwide that enumerate cocaine’s effects. Exhibit 18-12 is from that series of ads. In addition, some ads speak to parents who use drugs (“If parents stop, kids won’t start”), to women tempted to use cocaine (“What to do if he hands you a line”), and to parents who have put off talking to their children about drugs (“If everybody says it can’t happen to their kids, then whose kids is it happening to?”).

The effort is being billed as the “largest and most ambitious private-sector, voluntary peacetime effort ever undertaken.” Believing that the United States cannot succeed as a drug culture and that advertising can “demoralize” drug use, the organization wants nothing less than a drug-free America.

Not all public service advertising is done on such a massive scale. We see advertisements daily for intangible humanitarian social causes (Red Cross), political ideas or issues (political candidates), philosophical or religious positions (Church of Latter Day Saints), or particular attitudes and viewpoints (labor unions). In most cases, these advertisements are created and placed by nonprofit organizations, and the product they advertise is their particular mission in life, be it politics, welfare, religion, conservation, health, art, happiness, or love.

Research conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America proves that noncommercial advertising does change consumer attitudes. Specifically, the coalition’s ads have changed attitudes about drug use. Thus, by providing information to the public on issues such as health, safety, education, and the environment, noncommercial advertising helps build a better society. Public service announcements emphasizing the dangers of unsafe sex and drunk driving and those stressing the virtues of recycling and continuing education demonstrate that noncommercial advertising can help to enhance the quality of life.

3.2 TYPES OF NONCOMMERCIAL ADVERTISING

One way to categorize the various types of noncommercial advertising is by the organizations that use them. For instance, advertising is used by churches, schools, universities, charitable organizations, and many other nonbusiness institutions. We also see advertising by associations, such as labor groups, professional organizations, and trade and civic associations. In addition, we witness millions of dollars’ worth of advertising placed ^government organizations: the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine, Corps, and Postal Service; the Social Security Administration; the Internal Revenue Service; and various state chambers of commerce. In addition, in election years we are bombarded with all sorts of political advertising that qualifies as noncommercial. The Advertising Council Most of the national PSAs you see on television have been placed there by the Advertising Council, a private, nonprofit organization that links noncommercial campaign sponsors with ad agencies. The sponsors pay for production costs, while the ad agencies donate their creative services.

3.3 ADVERTISING COUNCIL

The Ad Council’s policy today is basically the same as when it began during World War II: “Accept no subsidy from government and remain independent of it. Conduct campaigns of service to the nation at large, avoiding regional, sectarian, or special-interest drives of all kinds. Remain nonpanisan and nonpolitical. Conduct the Council on a voluntary basis. Accept no project that does not lend itself to the advertising method. Accept no campaign with a commercial interest unless the public interest is obviously over riding.”

Among familiar campaigns created by the Ad Council are those for the United Negro College Fund (“A mind is a terrible thing to waste”); child abuse prevention (“Help destroy a family tradition”); the United Way (“It works for all of us”); crime prevention (“Take a bite out of crime”); and the U.S. Department of Transportation (“Drinking and driving can kill a friendship”). Exhibit 18-17 shows frames from an Ad Council commercial that advocates a healthy diet. The Ad Council’s two longest-running campaigns are those for the American Red Cross and forest fire prevention. According to the Ad Council’s research, the number of forest fires has been cut in half over the life of the Smokey Bear campaign.29 The council is currently playing a role in overseeing the Partnership for a Drug-Free America effort.

Health Education as a core course for Teachers’ Education: to enhance the Mental Health of students

Health Education as a core course for Teachers’ Education: to enhance the Mental Health of students

By

Akintunde, P. G. (Ph.D)

Department of Vocational & Special Education

University of Calabar

Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

And

Olanipekun, O. Fola

Olabisi Onabanjo University

Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

 

Abstract

This paper is primarily concerned with the role of teachers in enhancement of mental health of students. It discuses the factual picture of the functions of the teachers in a changing social and education environment, identifying the social community in the actualization of the human need (mental health) that are otherwise ignored. It highlights the complex expectation of the public from the role of teachers. The expectation makes the duties of teachers diffused; they in some measures serve as social workers and perform in addition to duties other than classroom teaching. Their responsibilities for social training in a changing environment, particularly in the misconception of mental health are discussed and recommendation made.

Key Words: Health education for teachers’ education, educating teachers in mental health, health education a necessity for teachers.

 

Introduction

            The World Health Organization (WHO) (1946) adopts a definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”, at the International Health Conference, New York; 19-22 June, 1946 signed on 22 July 1946 by the representative of 61 States (WHO official records No.2 100). It enters into force on 7th April 1948, thereby declaring health as a fundamental human right.

The complex nature of public expectation of teachers’ duties necessitates the need for them to have a social training that will make them meet the challenge resulting from changing environment. School health education aims at constituting healthy learning experiences, healthy environment (physical and mental health) and positive interpersonal relationships between Teachers and students, students and students inside and outside the school environment.

 Healthful school living which consists of emotional health, healthful interpersonal relationships, among others provide a safe and healthful environment. The three fold goal of environmental school health education is healthy people in healthy communities in a healthy environment.

Health lies in the functional interaction of the individual and his environment and not determined in terms of the individual isolation. A clinical picture shows the interplay of psychological, physiological and structural factors. The moment a man falls ill, he regresses in an infantile type of psychological condition, a type of adoption neurosis which is normal part of the patient’s reaction to his illness (Canestrari, 1963).

However, understanding of mental health by individual teacher and the society at large would be helpful in the conversion of weird and wild experience at early stage to greatness and responsibility in later life. Teachers are expected to have motivational impact on their students. Teachers have more vital role to play in student stress management. Students need to be educated on the effects of stress on achievement, and understand human behavior and how it affects other people in the environment (Olanipekun, 2006).

Key Words: Health education for teachers’ education, educating teachers in mental health, health education a necessity for teachers.

 

Mental Health

Mental health is a term to describe either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of mental disorders. It may include an individual’s ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience (About.com, 2006). It is regarded as expression of ones emotions which signifies a successful adaptation to a range of demands.

World Health Organization (2005) defines mental health as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his/her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his/her community”. However, the organization recognizes the fact that a complete definition may not be available because of cultural, religion and general environmental influences on determination, recognition of mental health and disorders. World Health Research (2001) explains that definition of mental health depend on cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories because they all affect how mental health is defined.

 

Mental Disorders

The definition of mental disorders is a key issue for mental health and for users and providers of mental health services. Most international clinical documents use the term “Mental Disorders” and some define it as a psychological or behavioral pattern associated with distress or disability.

Mental disorders are conceptualized as disorders of the brain circuits likely caused by development processes shaped by a complex interplay of genetics and experience. It is psychological or behavior pattern associated with distress or disability that occurs in an individual and is not a part of normal development or culture (Yolken and Torrey, 1995).

The recognition and understanding of mental health condition has changed over time and across culture, there are still variations in the definition, assessment and classification of mental disorders, although standard guideline criteria are widely accepted. Diagnoses are made by psychiatrists or clinical psychologists using various methods, often relying on observation and questioning in interviews. Treatments are provided by various mental health professionals.   

            Yolken and Torrey (1995) records that there are some diagnoses, such as childhood conduct disorder or adult antisocial personality disorder or psychopath, which are defined by or inherently associated with conduct problems and violence. There are conflicting findings about the extent to which certain specific symptoms, notably some kinds of psychosis (hallucination or delusions) that can occur in disorder such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder or mood disorder, are linked to an increased risk of serious violence on average.

            Recently, the field of Global Mental Health has emerged, defined as ‘the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving mental health for all people’ (Patel and Prince, 2010). The mediating factors of violence acts, however, are most consistently found to be mainly socio-demographic and socio-economic factors such as age, gender, lower socioeconomic status and in particular substance abuse (including alcoholism) to which some people may be particularly vulnerable (Stuart, 2003).

 

Types of Mental Disorders

Mental disorders are in categories. There are many facets of human behaviors and personality that can become disorder. This paper sum them from the classifications given by Yolken and Torrey (1995), Kitchener and Jorm (2002) and Keyes (2002).

Anxiety disorder: when anxiety or fear interferes with normal functioning. This may include phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsession, compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Affective disorders: Affective (emotion/mood) process can become disorders. These are mood disorder (unusual intense and sustained sadness, melancholia or despair) known as major depression or clinical depression (milder but still prolonged depression can be diagnosed as dysthymia).

Bipolar disorders (manic depression): It involves abnormally “high or pressured mood states, known as mania/hypomania, alternating with normal/depressed mood. Yolken and Torrey (1995) states that whether unipolar and bipolar mood phenomena represent distinct categories of disorder or whether they usually mix and merge together along a dimension or spectrum of mood is under debate in the scientific literature.

Pattern of belief, language use and perception can become disorder. Examples are delusion, thought disorder, and hallucinations. These are referred to as psychotic disorders (schizophrenia and delusional disorder).

Schizoaffective disorder:  It is a term use for those individuals showing aspects of both schizophrenia and affective disorders.

Personality disorders: paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic/narcissistic, avoidant, dependent/obsessive-compulsive.

Adjustment disorder: This is an inability to sufficiently adjust to life circumstances begins within three months of a particular event or situation, and ends within six months after the stressor stops or is eliminated.

Eating disorder: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, exercise bulimia or binge eating order.

Sexual disorder: gender identification disorder, dyspareunia, and ego-dystonic homosexuality.

Sleep disorder: insomnia

Tic disorder: Tourette’s syndrome, kleptomania, pyromania, gambling, substance dependence or abuse or addiction is in this category.

Conduct disorder: Inability to behave normally with expected discipline in the society. If this continues into adulthood, it may be diagnosed as anti-social personality disorder (psychopath).

 

Prevalence

            Mental disorders are common world wide. WHO (2000) records that one out of three people in most communities report sufficient criteria for at least one at some point in their life.

Sanfford (1978), states that many children have behaviors that conflict with a reasonable school environment which could not be described as a healthful one and invariably affects their performance and the adaptation of others to them. Carter, Briggs-Gowan, and Davis (2004) exclaims that many children exhibit a deviation from age appropriate behaviors which interferes with child’s own growth and development and/or the issue of others.

 

Causes of mental disorders

Mental disorders can arise from a combination of sources. In many cases there is no single accepted cause currently established. It is commonly belief that mental disorder results from genetic vulnerabilities exposed by environmental stressors.

WHO (2000) reveals that there is a strong relationship between the various forms of severe and complex mental disorder in adulthood and abuse (physical, sexual or emotional) or neglect of children during the developmental years. According to the report ‘children sexual  abuse’ alone plays a significant percentage of all mental disorder in adult females, most notable example being eating disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Jefferoate (1969) explains that environment can cause or trigger physical  or mental ill-health while psyche influences the development of organic disease in remote parts of the body, and illness begets anxiety and this in turn begets illness. The mental health of an individual depends on the continuous satisfaction of specials requisites in the pattern of his psychological stimulation, the opportunity to give and receive love and affection, to be dependent and be depended upon. When one or more of these is/are missing the level of mental soundness is altered resulting in mental illness.  

 

The following are considered as contributing factors or causes of mental disorder (WHO, 2000; Steadman, Mulvey, Monahan, Robbins, Appelbaum, Grisso, Roth, and Silver, 1998; and Kitchener and Jorm, 2002):

Studies have shown that genes often play an important role in the development of mental disorder, although the reliable identification of connections between specific genes and specific categories of disorder has proven more difficult.

Environmental events surrounding pregnancy and birth have been implicated.

Traumatic brain injury may increase the risk of developing certain mental disorder.

There has been some tentative inconsistent links found to certain viral infections, to substance misuse, and to general physical health.

Social influences have been found to be important, including abuse, bullying and other negative/stressful life experiences.

Wider community vices/problems such as unemployment/employment problems, socio economic inequality, and lack of socio cohesion have been attributed also to mental disorder.

.

Society response to mentally ill people

Response of people to mentally ill persons or people with nervous breakdown is pathetic and unhealthy. A study reported by Times Online (2009) note that assistance given by extended families that often help and supportive religious leaders who listen with kindness and respect often contrast with usual practice in psychiatric diagnosis and medication. Due to lack of proper education and ignorance on causes of mental illness and emotional problems, prevention approach and treatment, the public fail to understand the true nature of many of these mental illnesses and fail to seek the available services. Thus rather than helping to reduce/cushing the effect of the problem or the cause of the problem, the condition of the affected individuals are worsen. Some conditions are not as bad as people look at them and if they are well handled the situation may change for better.

Murray, Lopez, and World Health Organization (1996) reports:           

 

“The burden of mental illness on health and productivity throughout

the world has been profoundly underestimated. Data developed by

the massive Global Burden of disease study, conducted by the WHO,

the World Bank, and Harvard University revealed that mental illness,

including suicide, rank second in the burden of disease in established

market economics, … It further revealed that nearly two third of  all

the people with diagnosable mental disorders do not seek treatment. It

is believed that when people understand that mental disorders are not

the result of moral failings or limited will power, but are legitimate

illnesses that are responsive to specific treatments, much of the

negative stereotyping may dissipate”

 

They report further that the 10 leading causes of disability (counting lost years of healthy life) at age 15-44 were: major depression, alcohol use, road traffic accident, schizophrenia, self inflicted injuries, drug use, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorders, osteoarthritis, and violence.

            Thompson (2010) in his study ‘Addressing Suicide: is treatment more important than therapist?’  reports a study by Dr. Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington who suggested that “type of treatment may make a big difference for people who have borderline personality disorder (BPD), a chronic condition associated with difficulty in effectively managing one’s emotions., multiple suicide attempts, physical self harm (e.g. cutting on oneself) and impulsive, often destructive actions.”

            Stigma remains a serious problem, with many cases of human rights violations like chaining or beating experienced by people with mental illness. Perpetrators are rarely brought to justice.Royal College of Psychiatrist reported that research has shown that there is stigma attached to mental illness.

There are on-line psychiatric or mental illness self-diagnose available now stating the weekly changes in individual mental health and quality of life. Report has it that annual expenditure on health in Nigeria is less than 3% of Gross Domestic Product, amounting to per capita, mental health services received only a very small part of this total health budget.

 

Factors underlying people’ behavior towards mental ill people

Many factors have been attributed to uncaring attitude of people to the mentally ill people. These include:

Predisposition factors: The antecedents to behavior. What provide the rationale or motivation for the behavior (e.g. knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, confidence, and existing skills).
Enabling factors: The conditions in the environment that enable the motivation to be realized. These factors may be availability, accessibility to facilities for caring for the affected (finance, psychiatric care, etc).
Reinforcing factors: What follow the behavior (acceptance of the patient that he/she needs help).
Knowledge: It is necessary for a conscious action to take place; knowledge can be gained from information provided by health professionals, parents, teachers, books and mass medial or other sources through experience.
Belief: A conviction that a phenomenon or object is true or real. Most of them are derived from parents or other respected people in the life of the beholder.
Values: The value given to things tends to cluster within ethnic group and across generations of people sharing a common history and geographical identity.
Attitude: This reflects likes/dislikes towards certain categories of objects, persons/situation. It is sometimes based on limited experience. It may be formed without understanding the whole situation.
Relationships and morality: Clinical conceptions of mental illness also overlap with personal and cultural values in the domain of morality, so much so that it is sometimes argued that separating the two is impossible without fundamentally redefining the essence of being a particular person in a society.

 

            Tilbury and Rapley (2004) and Karasz (2005), agree that in clinical psychiatry, persistent distress and disability indicate an internal disorder requiring treatment; but in order context, the distress and disability can be seen as an indicator of emotional struggle and the need to address social and structural problems. The poor economic situation has affected the standard of living of many people especially those we can class as poor.

The unchecked wide gap between the rich and the poor has resulted in some cases to family disintegration, with adverse effect on children who are being abused. These and other factors have led to increase in mental illness of many young ones within school age.

If their society cannot accommodate them, schools have no choice, and they cannot be discriminated against. Every child has right to education in Nigeria. Therefore schools should learn how to accommodate and integrate them into the system. 

 

Psychotherapy

            Psychotherapy involves a variety of treatment techniques, often used along with medication. There are many ways of treating mental disorders, some of which are stated below (general and specific):

General

Individual: involving only the patent and the therapist.

Group – involving two or more patient in the therapy at the same time. It gives them the opportunity to share experiences and learns and appreciates how others feel too.

Marital or couples: helping spouses and partners understand why their loved one has a mental disorder, what changes in communication, how behaviors can help and what they can do to cope.

Family/relation: Involvement of family or a close relation that has influence or has much information on the patient in improving the condition of patient is vital and recognized. They need to understand what their loved one is going through, how they themselves can cope, and what they can do to help.

Specific

Psychoanalytic – the first approach, the patient’s thoughts are verbalized including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analysis formulates the nature of the unconscious conflicts which are causing the patient’s symptoms and character problems. It addresses the underlining psychic conflicts and defenses.

Behavior therapy/applied behavior analysis – focuses on changing maladaptive patterns of behavior to improve emotional responses, cognitions, and interactions with others.

Cognitive behavioral therapy – It is based on modifying the patterns of thought and behavior associated with a particular disorder. It seeks to identify maladaptive cognition, appraisal, beliefs and reactions with the aim of influencing destructive negative emotions and problematic dysfunctional behaviors.

Psychodynamic – a dept psychology with primary aim to reveal the unconscious content of a client’s psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. It gets its root from psychoanalysis.

Existential therapy – It is based on the existential belief that human beings are alone in the world. This association leads to meaninglessness, which can be overcome only by creating one’s own values and by meanings. It is philosophically associated with phenomena.

Systemic therapy or family therapy – a process where a net-work of significant others as well as an individual are addressed.

Humanistic Approach – a psychological approach that is a value oriented, holds a hopeful, constructive view of human beings and of their substantial capacity to be self determining, guided by a conviction that intentionality and ethical values are strong psychological forces, among the basic determinants of human behavior.

Eclectic/integrative approach – a combination of two or more therapy techniques for treatment of mental disorder.

Counseling and co-counseling – a psychological approach too but in this case advice and suggestion are given base on the observation and information available to the counselor(s).

Psycho education – This program provides people with the information to understand and manage their problems.

Creative therapies – This involves art works such as music and drama therapies.

Lifestyle adjustments and supportive measures – personal adjustment to situations.

 

School connection and nature of teachers’ duties

WHO (2000) reveals that there is a strong relationship between the various forms of severe and complex mental disorder in adulthood and the abuse (physical, sexual/emotional/neglect of children during the developmental years); and records that sexual abuse of children alone plays a significant percentage of the mental disorder in adult females, most notable examples being eating disorders and borderline personality disorder should be a thing of serious concern to our education institutions. There were records of various abuses of children in our environment, many of which could have been averted if they were well enlightened on how to relate in the society, the self protection or prevention of some of the vices in our society and even counseling for victims.

The socio economic and family problems has made many school children and even the grown ups exhibit some emotional and behavioral problems. Children are the life wire of schools. Therefore, identification and management of emotional and behaviorally disturbed children is very important since teachers are dealing with them directly in schools (Akintunde and Akintunde, 2010)). It is not economically possible for each school to have a psychiatrist as a permanent staff. This inability to have such specialist necessitates equipping teachers with essential knowledge capable of assisting in identifying and administering mental health problems to some extent (Akintunde, 2007).

The more teachers know about how to identify the children mental problems the better and easier for them to deal with such situations when they arise. Their relationship with the students and the community will improve and help tremendously in improving the performance of the students. They will even be in position to enlighten parents of these children and the public in general (Akintunde, 2007).

Educating student teachers on mental health through school health education will go a long way not to assist both students and teachers. Teachers are also part of our community; they also operate under the same condition as their students and people in the community. Therefore they are faced with many challenges as those in the community.

Teachers have their personal problems that stress them up upon which they are still expected to accommodate students’ problems most of which are related to mental health problems. In order to make their job easy, they should be armed adequately with enough skills to handle those problems (Sanfford, (1978)).  

Although a lay man look at teaching as a job that any man can handle, forgetting that it is a 24hours job, not ending in school hours but continues as carry over after closing hour, the teacher has to prepare for the next day job and also finish assessment/marking of any assignment given to students as home work. The same person has domestic responsibilities to attend to.

In fact he has little or no time for himself talk less of recreation to recuperate him. If he does not know how to manage the situation, he may end up a psychiatric patient. The knowledge of symptoms, identification, management and therapy of mental disorders or illnesses will help him cope and adjust.

The knowledge of mental health will enable the teachers to know how far they can push the students in terms of discipline, academic activities, co-curricular activities and what to do to assist or step down the effect of mental illness on students. There are times that the attitude of some teachers (especially the untrained or half baked ones) can be very tormenting to the life of students. This is getting worse now that teachers indulge in all sorts of corruptions in schools.

 

Problems associated with integration of children with mental disorders into school system

According to WHO (2000) virtually everybody seems to experience mental disorder at one time or the other. All agents of enhancement of mental health are equally affected mentally too either directly or indirectly. Stress which is a booster of mental illness strikes on everyone; thus, there is need for all and sundry to understand and know how to manage stress.

Guardians’ services render by teachers stops in school but students still interact with the environment outside the school where the school is not in the knowing of the nature of the interaction. What happen to the child after school is not under the control of the school. This condition is worse now that almost all schools are operating as day school except few private schools. There is every possibility of the effort of school being rendered useless by counter interaction of the larger society.

The problem in our society is too heavy for individual to carry; talk less of adding another person’s problem. As a result of this, there is insufficient value base for a committed ethic of care in our society. Thus committed teacher are rare to find.

The differences in background, ethnicity, culture and other attribute that makes individual unique couple with the general society concept and stigma associated with mental illness/disorders makes individual nature complex.

If teachers are to be carried along in alleviating the problem of mental illness in our society, it means a change in teachers’ training curriculum. This is always a problem because generally people do not give in to changes easily. Before you know it Government will also give excuse of lack of money to finance the little alteration the change in curriculum will bring.

Some teachers are bad examples to students and they rather add to the existing problem than solve or reduce it. Whoever cannot manage himself cannot manage others or be a brothers’ keeper. Those in this category needs attention themselves and schools should take appropriate step to help them out before they influence the students.

There is no problem without solution. Sanfford (1978) adopts and adapts some psychotherapy techniques to suggest the following ten aids for teachers to actualize a healthy school environment:

Objectivity – To be objective about self and what to do towards what the student does.
Sharing – To share problems and experiences regularly with colleagues, parents and administrators, through conference, formal and informal meeting.
Feedback – Obtain feedback from observation of the child and suggestions from parents, teachers and administration.
Consultation – Where necessary consult expert like psychologist.
Collaboration – Loan out the child for sometime with other teachers, class and environment, then collate feedback on particular trait being addressed.
Observation – Use some observational techniques such as feedback interaction, analysis and other objective recording system.
Be artistic – Literature, theatres, good films, music and art, may somehow become more meaningful to the teacher when it comes to the issue of their children. People in different community are gradually getting used to using these media as tools for integration and communicative models.
Sense of humor – Maintain sense of humor.
Be Professional – maintain a strict sense of professionalizing while remain the personality the teacher is.
Reinforce – Seek reinforcement and assurance from the children in order to provide them with assurance and solid ground to fall on.

 

Benefit of making health education a core course for teacher education

The awareness and ability to understand the causes and problems associated with mental disorders goes a long way to prevention, management and treatment of these problems, making teaching and learning conducive, effective and enjoyable. Therefore there are lots to benefit from introducing school health education with emphasis on mental health into teachers curriculum. The summary of the benefits are these:

Teachers will be able to discover themselves and relate well with their colleagues and students.

It will enable teachers to understand their students’ inadequacies and problems.

Teachers will find it easy to assist their students in reducing the effects of their problems on their academic and relationship with other people inside and outside the school.

Students will have confidence in discussing their problems with their teachers, sharing their dreams with them with the aim of getting valuable advice and support from them.

Relationship between teachers and students will be more cordial, helpful and effective.

Both teachers and students will develop the ability to come to terms with the environment, adjust to situations and blend with people, their inadequacies not withstanding.

All these are attributes that can improve on teaching learning and lay solid foundation for development of a whole man in a child to meet society expectation.

 

 

 

References

 

Akintunde, P. G. (2007), Administrative Phalanx in Education. Calabar: University of

       Calabar Press. P. 134-169

Akintunde, P.G. and Akintunde, V.O. (2010), Duties of schools in national moral

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CAMH: Toronto Star Opinion. Editorial: Ending stigma of mental illness.

Canestrari, R (1963), Psychological Training of Medical Practitioners to facilitate good

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Carter, A.S., Briggs-Gowan, M.J., & Davis, N.O. (2004), “Assessment of young

       children’s socials emotional development and psychopathology: recent advances and

       recommendations for practice” J Child Psycho Psychiatry 45 (1): 109-34. January.

Elbogen, E.B., & Johnson, S.C. (2009), The intricate link between violence and mental

      disorder: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related

      Conditions” Arch.Gen. Psychiatry 66 (2): 152-61. Feb.

      dio:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2008.537. PMID 19188537.

Fazel, S., Gulati, G., Linsell, L.,  Geddes, J.R., & Grann, M. (2009), “Schizophrenia and

       violence: systematic review and meta-analysis” PLoS Med. 6 (8): e1000120. doi:

      10.1371/jornal. Pmed. 1000120. PMID 19668362

Jefferoate, T.N.A. (1969), Principles of Gynecology. London: Butterworth.

Karasz, A. (2005), “Cultural differences in conceptual models of depression”, Social

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Keyes, Corey (2002), ‘The Mental Health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in

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Kitchener, B.A., and Jorm, A.F. (2002), Mental Health First Aide Manual. Centre for Mental Health research, Canberra, p5.

Lakhan, S.E. & Vieira, K. F. (2008), “Nutritional therapies for mental disorders” Nutr J7:

       2. doi; 10.1186/1475-2891-7-2.   PMID 18208598. PMC 2248201.

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Mbanefo, S.E. (1991), Psychiatry in general medical approach practice in Nigeria.

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Patel, V., & Prince, M. (2010), Global Mental Health – a new global health field comes

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How Can Hand Held Portable Ecg Machines-Ekg Monitor Help In Managing Your Heart Health?

Portable EKG Machines and your Health

Health e-consumers are a growing breed. They are health conscious individuals who utilize online media, wireless communications and e-health for wellness maintenance. The popularity of the Internet and the trend for all consumers to be more health conscious mean that health-i-consumers will play a dominant role in the future health care industry.

The current century is an era of technological innovation. The burgeoning growth of technology has an impact on all aspects of our lives. In the health care industry, technologies have always played a significant role in patient health care and professional relationships. Innovations in technologies have significantly changed the way interactions between physicians and patients are performed and have greatly improved health care providers’ services.

Medical devices like Blood Glucose monitoring device, Portable ECG/EKG Monitors, and other devices like digital weighing scales and temperature measuring monitors have revolutionized the health care industry like never before.

In the past these devices were restricted to major hospitals and health care providers,and also they were very expensive, the general public  afford them. Today with the growth of consumer electronic industries, the cost of these devices like portable ECG/EKG has been dramatically reduced. The cost of microprocessors and the technologies like Artificial Intelligence are now a days cheaper.

Every consumer who is concerned about their health can afford to get one of these devices either for themselves or for their loved ones.

How can Hand Held EKG Device Help in Heart Disease Management?

InThe media is littered with stories of people who could have been saved if they only had went to the doctor when the symptoms started to appear. If you hear a loved one or your spouse complaining of similar symptoms please urge them to go to the doctor, as you could literally be saving their life.

the case of heart disease and stroke getting an early diagnosis is vital to dealing with the disease and will greatly increase the chances for you to experience a speedy recovery.

The first thing that you can do to ensure help secure an early diagnosis of heart disease is to make frequent visits to your healthcare professional. You know your body better than anyone else, and if something isn’t right you need to be checked out.

The second thing that you must do in order to remain on top of your heart health is monitor your heart beat through a portable ECG/EKG machine. They are an absolute necessity if you’re serious about monitoring the health of your heart on a daily basis.

Today, heart health issues are becoming increasingly common. The simpler forms of heart disease in people are fast growing into serious life threatening complications. More awareness of your heart’s condition is needed if you really want to prevent heart disease.

The ECG machine can help you monitor your heart’s health closely and accurately. Moreover, this medical tool can also diagnose cases of early onsets of abnormal rhythms and prevent heart diseases altogether.

Taking care of your health is no longer a option today,it is a necessity,with the increasing health care costs it is vital to be healthy prior to onset of any disease.Investing in simple technologies like a portable monitoring device which gives you analysis of your heart rhythms can help you in maintaining your  heart health in the long term and avoid expensive visits to medical centers.

What the New Health Care Reform Bill Means For People With Pre-Existing Conditions

I have a pre-existing condition – what does the health care reform bill do for me?

I think one of the biggest questions of the day is how will the health care reform bill affect those people with pre-existing conditions?This has always been a sore spot for me because I am one of those people that has been unfairly denied insurance coverage in the past because of a congenital heart valve condition that I was born with. Being a small business owner for many years, I was always terrified of losing my insurance coverage – knowing that if I lost my coverage I would have a hard time finding other coverage and possibly be without coverage at all.

Addressing pre-existing conditions is just one of the many parts of the health care reform bill – but a very important part – and that is what I will focus on in this first series of hubs about the new health care bill aka The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In an effort to unravel all the bits and pieces of the bill, let’s take a look at summaries of the government documents on how people with pre-existing conditions will fare.

What the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says

What the health Care Bill Means For People With Pre-Existing Conditions:

According to the new health car bill, a short summary on pre-existing conditions gives us this:

In 2010, the bill will provide immediate assistance for patients who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions. It will also prohibit pre-existing condition exclusion for children. In 2014, the bill will ban pre-existing condition exclusion for all patients in the U.S.

“Insurers will be prohibited from denying coverage or setting rates based on gender, health status, medical condition, claims experience, genetic information, evidence of domestic violence, or other health-related factors,” according to the summary. “Premiums will vary only by family structure, geography, actuarial value, tobacco use, participation in a health promotion program, and age (by not more than three to one).

will ensure that ALL Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and will create the transformation within the health care system necessary to contain costs”.

What this means for people like me is that I can now get insurance coverage REGARDLESS of my pre-existing condition. Not only that but I can no longer be discriminated against in the future because of this pre-existing condition. This, in my book, is a huge step towards equality in our nation. I am only one of many who have been denied coverage in the past because of a pre-existing condition – even though I have paid dearly for not only my health coverage but also for those of my children when I owned a small business. I currently have partial insurance, and plan to seek out a better plan now, knowing that I can longer be denied because of my pre-existing condition. Because I also fall into a lower income level at this time, working only part-time, I should be able to immediately get coverage without worrying about getting turned down.

And one of the beautiful things about this bill is that children, our precious children, will now also have the same rights TO HEALTH COVERAGE, regardless of their pre-existing conditions.This is also another huge leap in our society, where up to now parents of handicapped and disabled children have been unfairly denied health insurance for their children that have been born ill or gotten sick. How many times have we seen children unfairly denied medical coverage? Desperate parents seeking to get the medical attention their children needed but could not get? Holding onto jobs for dear life fearing that their children would suffer if they got laid off or fired? My own father, God bless him, stayed in the Navy just so he could provide medical coverage for my sister, who died at the age of 13 because of a congenital heart defect. My father knew how difficult it would be to help my sister without good medical coverage. He made huge life sacrifices for his family to make sure they had good medical coverage (and this was 50 years ago) How many other parents have sat on pins and needles fearing the loss of their medical coverage?

 

2nd Part : The pagan moon cult called Islam. Islam is not a religion

Individuality, choice, debate, bourgeois living, peace, trade and commerce, dissension, religions, clubs – these and anything else which took away loyalty to the cult would and must be abolished. Guarantees – jobs, health, income, education, pensions – these would be given IF you are 100% loyal to the cult. There is nothing ‘right wing’ about such a program. This is collective madness.

 

Islam demands much of the same and given its origins as a pagan moon cult, this is not surprising. Most real experts – meaning those who are not populist politicians, nor the talking heads on TV – know that the word ‘Allah’ comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al-ilah has always referenced the moon cult in Arabia, and in fact within al-ilah there are different moon deities depending on the cycle of the moon and its appearance in the heavens. It is not a mistake that the crescent moon is the symbol of Islam. Allah is the ‘male’ moon deity and the cycle of the crescent moon was his pagan cycle of ritual.

 

According to the Encyclopeida of Islam “Allah was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities” (I:406, ed. Gibb), and “Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry” (III:1093, 1971). In the Encyclopedia of Religion: ‘”Allah” is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel’ (I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979). According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36).

 

The Quraysh tribe into which Muhammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah’s three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.

 

In mad Mohammed’s home town of Mecca, his family, part of Mecca’s ruling tribe, worshipped three moon-astral based goddesses: Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. All of these moon deities were worshipped in the shrine called the Kabah, a shrine which Mohammed’s family helped to support and protect. Of particular importance was the veneration and kissing of the black asteroid rock called the Hubal signifying a gift from the heavens [later turned into a gift from God to Abraham by Mohammed]. Al-ilah was the common Arabic word for ‘the god’ or this supreme deity of the moon cult, though this God was never fully described by Mohammed or any Arab for that matter [it was largely an illiterate society].

 

Al-ilah was in essence an abstract concept which probably referred to ‘something’ which controlled the other moon and astral deities worshipped by the Arabs. It was no accident that when Mohammed started his cult he named it Allah or al-ilah meaning the highest God or deity. It would be a word and a concept well-known to all the disparate Arab tribes with their various beliefs as being something they could identify with.

 

The Health Care Bill and Your Medical Practice?What the Experts Say

While many of the people who fought the health care bill called it “socialized medicine,” the fact is that the bill as passed maintains a capitalist system in which most of the health care industry will be able to set prices as it sees fit.

Even the health insurance industry itself is facing only weak price controls while one of the biggest contributors to skyrocketing medical costs—the pharmaceutical industry—won’t have to reform pricing at all.

This combination could end up being a disaster for primary care physicians. Why? Because one of the biggest selling points for the health care bill was that it would keep costs down. And what sector are the cuts going to come from if not from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries? That’s right—a lot of them could well come from your bottom line.

Let’s look at the facts. The health care bill does provide for some weak controls on the prices that health insurers can charge by prohibiting insurers “with a pattern of excessive rate increases” from selling health insurance on the new exchanges, according to the White House website.

And while the pharmaceutical industry is being billed a one-time assessment under the reform bill, that is the only financial hit being taken by those companies.

So we’re looking at a situation where drug companies can charge whatever they want, health insurers have to at least appear to be careful about rates, and the government will be guaranteeing insurance to millions of people while at the same time looking to keep costs down.

Primary care physicians already work harder than just about anyone else in health care while still being the lowest-paid physicians. Now your patient load is set to go up by 10%–20%, while at the same time every one of the players except the drug companies are going to be searching for ways to cut costs.

What do you think is likely to happen? As a former medical sales representative who now works as a wealth management advisor to primary care physicians, I don’t think the future is looking that promising.

The health insurance industry is facing weak price controls on one side and the end to their discretion in which subscribers to take on the other. Our government has taken on a huge share of the responsibility for providing health insurance coverage at a time when we’re facing historic levels of federal debt. Meanwhile, you know that the pharmaceutical industry isn’t going to do a thing to keep costs down.

I think this is going to add up to more work for the same or even less pay for primary care physicians. And while there is a way for you to protect your lifestyle, the time to act is now if you want to come away from the health care bill with your wealth intact.

As a primary care doctor, you spend your entire workweek taking care of other people. Now that the health care bill has passed, you must start looking out for yourself at least as well as you care for others. That way you can have the lifestyle and retirement that you’ve earned no matter what happens to the health care industry in the future.

proposed amendment to stop health care plan

If the Republican-led state Legislature has its way, Florida voters will have two chances in 2012 to weigh in on President Barack Obama and his agenda. Easy To Insure ME has the answers

On Wednesday, the Florida Senate revived a proposed constitutional amendment designed to block a portion of Obama’s health care plan that requires people to buy insurance or face a penalty.

The proposed amendment for the 2012 ballot easily passed the Senate Health Regulation Committee along party lines, and is the first measure the Legislature has taken up in preparation for the spring lawmaking session.

The Legislature passed a similar amendment last year, but the courts struck it from the Nov. 2 ballot on the grounds that it was misleading because the summary made political statements that the amendment didn’t specifically address.

The current measure’s sponsor, state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, said he removed the language the courts found objectionable. He said Obama’s so-called “individual mandate” that people purchase insurance is far worse than the language that gave the courts heartburn.

“I don’t know anywhere in American history where the government has told American citizens that they must purchase a private plan,” Haridopolos said. “It moves away from the fundamental direction of what we’re all about as a nation.”

Haridopolos acknowledged he’s “looking at” a run for U.S. Senate in 2012, when the amendment could be on the ballot along with Obama when he likely runs for re-election.

Haridopolos repeatedly pointed out that he’s a college-level history teacher, and said Obama’s health care overhaul violated the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which restricts federal power in favor of state’s rights. But Democrats say another portion of the Constitution, the Supremacy Clause, bars states from undoing acts of Congress.

Regardless, if the measure passes in Florida by the required 60 percent vote for constitutional amendments, it would bar future legislators from enacting an individual mandate for health insurance.

Florida Republicans aren’t just fighting Obama’s health care amendment at the ballot box. Attorney General Bill McCollum has joined 19 other state attorneys general in a federal-court challenge to declare Obama’s health care plan unconstitutional. Oral arguments are next week.

One of the dissenters in Tuesday’s 9-2 vote, Sen. Eleanor Sobel, of Broward County, said she was concerned that the Legislature is negative.

“We don’t work to ‘yes.’ We work to ‘no,’ ” said Sobel, D-Hallandale Beach. Her fellow Democrat, Margate Sen. Jeremy Ring, said nothing before he voted against the measure, which is co-sponsored by all 28 Senate Republicans.

Haridopolos said the bill is on a fast track because it already passed the House and Senate by wide margins last session.