Monday, January 27, 2020

Nursing Practices of Alternative Medicine

Nursing Practices of Alternative Medicine Mental Health: Integrative Care Lauren Lane Katie Palmer Integrative care encompasses the nursing practices of alternative medicine. This includes acupuncture, aromatherapy, guided imagery, and many more types of therapies. These therapies are usually centered on the individual patient, and holistically address their variety of needs, including physical, mental, and spiritual foci (Halter, 2014, p 637). We will address nonconventional treatments and explore the different approaches, safety, and nursing care associated with integrative care practices. It is only recently that the United State’s western views of medicine have expanded to include complementary medicine. Western medicine is based on a more scientific approach with highly controlled experiments and research. Complementary medicine comes from mostly non-western sources and is based on nature and its interplay with energy (Halter, 2014, p 638). There was two billion dollars awarded to complementary research in 2011 and the studies results showed that we could neither prove nor disprove complementary medicines worth as a healing tool. There are many who do believe that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) helps them. According to halter, 38% of adults and 12% of children use some type of CAM therapy (Halter, 2014, p 639). It is more widely used among women and mostly used for musculoskeletal problems. We have yet to discover the full effects and responses to CAM, which is still a complicated and controversial matter for the healthcare field. Some of the reasons patients are so attracted to CAM is that it allows them to take action in their own care. CAM also has lower risks than many therapeutic approaches and drug regimens. It is less expensive and provides an alternative to conventional medicine when they are out of options or may have previously had negative experiences with western medicine. As nurses, we can be informed about CAM and help consumers to make smart decisions to complement or give alternatives to routine therapeutic approaches. Our biggest concerns are safety. CAM is still unregulated and not guaranteed to work. Many consumers believe what they read on the Internet even though it may not be accurate information. Just because a supplement is natural or organic doesn’t mean that it is harmless. These natural supplements need to assessed and monitored just like a medication. We also face patients that put off treatment and self treat with alternative therapies that may or may not help their conditions, especially in cases of mental health issues (Halter, 2014, p 640). As costs rise for conventional medicine in the United States, more and more consumers are moving toward alternative therapies. Only some of the alternative therapies are covered by insurance, and this is going to depend on what type of insurance the patient has, or if they have insurance at all. There is a large claim that CAM’s proposed effects are only due to the placebo effect (Halter, 2014, p 640). This is when a type of therapy works for an individual to some degree when the therapy is actually nothing; a placebo. Many believe this is due to the optimism and positive approach to CAM that can often occur. The American Nurses Association (ANA) recognizes integrative care in the profession of holistic nursing. This is an approach that involves the person as a whole, and their biocultural influences. It allows the nurse to view the patient as more than a sum of their parts and all the dimensions that can affect that individuals well being (Halter, 2014, p 642). Nutrition is a very big part of a person’s well being, and has been widely researched. Many people with illnesses can benefit from diet and nutrition changes; research shows that a diabetic patient benefits from a diabetic diet and lower glycemic index foods. Alternative therapies involving nutrition take this same approach to aid in treatment for a variety of disorders. For example, many people believe gluten free diets help children diagnosed with autism, but there has been no concrete evidence to support that claim. There are a lot of diet therapies associated with depression and other psychiatric disorders. Vitamins, supplements, and herbs are some examples of potential alternative therapies one might chose. Many of these can interact with medications and should be initially assessed in every patient. The patient may not recognize that they need to tell the healthcare provider or nurse that they are taking these alternative supplements and need to be asked specifically. There are many common types of integrative therapy that are common to society today. Herbal therapy includes the uses of herbs like St. Johns wort, which is used for pain and mood stabilization. Ginkgo biloba is another common herb that is used for memory. Many of these have side effects and interactions just like any other medication and should be treated as such. Meditation is a mind and body therapy that involves focusing and deep breathing, which is used to help calm the person. Acupuncture uses needles at pressure points to relieve pain and many other disorders (Halter, 2014, p 644). Aromatherapy is a popular therapy using essential oils on the skin or with a diffuser to target senses that results in a variety of effects such as calming, sleep, energizing and so on. Energy therapies such a Reiki are an expanding alternative therapy that nurses can take classes in. This requires energy manipulation and therapeutic touch as a means to heal and bring wellness to a person depending on their chief complaints. There are many different patients that can benefit from these therapies. Dominantly, psychiatric patients seem to use alternative therapies more than those of any other disorder or illness (Halter, 2014, p 644-645). Depression and anxiety are the main focus. When caring for these patients we would want to make sure we assess the patient for use of alternative therapies, this includes supplements, herbs, and other preferred methods of therapy. This may include doing a cultural assessment of our patient, who may prefer or already be performing alternative therapies based on their beliefs of medicine and health. Diagnosis for this patient might consist of cultural implications like the balance and harmony of nature with the body. In planning and implementing our patient’s care we will want to be sensitive to their preferences of therapy and their cultural values. This could entail a patient with different religious values, like a Jehovah witness who does not accept blood products. When western interventions are not accepted due to religious values, alternative therapies could ne used when planning their care. Alternative therapy may also not be the only therapy being implemented. It can complement medication regimens or other types of western-based therapies, such as the patient undergoing cancer treatment and also taking part in meditation and yoga. Nurses need to assess patients for interactions and different side effects when a patient is using integrative therapies. Not only do nurses need to assess the medication effects but they also need to evaluate for patient outcomes. Is the alternative therapy helping the patient? How does the patient perceive the therapy? Is this therapy safe? These are important aspects to think about when undergoing the nursing process with alternative therapy practices. Overall, alternative therapies are becoming more widely popular due to rising costs and limits of western medicine. Alternative therapy has become a common aspect of the nursing assessment and may coincide with cultural or religious views. Psychiatric patients tend to most use alternative therapies and should be considered along with their care (Halter, 2014, p 647). By being aware, informed, and knowledgeable of integrative care nurses can best serve patients holistically and maximize their safety and wellness. References Halter, M. J. (2014) Varcarolis, Foundations of psychiatric mental health nursing: A clinical approach, 7th ed. St. Louis: Saunders Elsevier.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Press Release Order Essay

The demand for International translation services has been constantly increasing for the past few years. Moreover, the growing number of Internet users every year has resulted into a similar and broader demand which is online translation. Basically, it is clear that these days, clients all over the world need quick and reliable technical translation services that they can easily access using the Internet. As a response to these demands, a leading translation company has recently expanded its business operation and has recruited professional translators who can fully meet the translation needs of clients from all around the globe. In a general meeting held last April 1st 2008, company Manager James Tate emphasized to the employees that the adequate staff replenishment in the company have made translation services more approachable. As Tate said in the meeting, â€Å"We are all human beings as well as our clients. Some of us question this fact because of enormous amount of orders, but it is unquestionable that our clients need permanent help and support, thus, we decide to help our support and translators’ teams in order to deliver effective services to our clients†. In the meeting, Tate further stated that the company’s current manpower that provides website translation service has constantly met the growing demands of clients in live support. According to Tate, the company is in the eventual expansive mode responding the world translation services, in which the company has grown and leading in both document translation service and foreign language translation. The manpower expansion of the company aims to deliver more professional translation services by adding twenty more high quality professional staff to double the translation capacities. Likewise, one of the important tasks in providing assistance to clients is the adequate maintenance of a live support. Tate believes that the live support is more significant in bringing about a personalized approach to clienteles and reaching out the services towards world translation. This kind of venture in international translation service has been a breakthrough of a reinvented industry using Internet technology. This venture operates like call center which is also a booming clientele-out-sourcing business. Likewise, the business in technical translation services is in the same league with other cyber technology innovations. In addition, some industrial technocrats perceive a looming demand in international translation services which may indicate vulnerability of competition, specifically by similar online business entities. One of the indications is the possible realignment of call centers into a one-stop-shop venture in business-process-outsourcing which may include technical translation services. This indication may not be a remote possibility reflective on the situation of the available technical manpower and academic professionals. Generally, the company’s online translation services would radiate a more definitive employment opportunity to absorb the people’s skills and potentials that are untapped by other industries and competing job markets. These skilled translators would then eventually become the cornerstone of a bigger and

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Animal Rights and Human Wrongs Essay

Are there limits on how human beings can legitimately treat non-human animals? Or can we treat them just any way we please? If there are limits, what are they? Are they sufficiently strong, as som e peop le supp ose, to lead us to be veg etarians and to se riously curtail, if not eliminate, our use of non-human animals in `scientific’ experiments designed to benefit us? To fully ap preciate this question let me contrast it with two different ones: Are there limits on how we can legitimately treat rocks? And: are there limits on how we can legitima tely treat other human beings? The an swer to th e first ques tion is pre suma bly `No.’ Well, that’s not q uite right. There are som e limits on what w e can le gitimate ly do with or to rocks. If Paula has a pet rock, then Susan can’t justifiably take it away or smash it with a sledge hammer. After all it is Paula’s rock. Or if there is a rock of unusual beauty or special human interest say the Old Man of Hoy or Mt. Rushmore it would be inappropriate , and pro bably im mora l, for me to te ar it down , to deface it, or to chisel o ut a sectio n to use in my ca tapult. These limits though, arise not from any direct concern for the rocks; rather, they are imposed because of the interests a nd rights of other h uman s. Susan can’t take Paula’s rock for the same reason she can’t take Paula’s eraser: it is Paula’s and Paula has a right to those things which are hers. And no one ca n destro y or defa ce items of specia l natural b eauty because by doing so one is indirectly harming the interests of other humans in them. So there are limits on what we can legitimately do to inanim ate objects, but whatever limits there are arise from some human concern.1 Not so for our treatment of other humans. We suppose that it is inappropriate to tr eat a human being just any way we wish. I cannot steal another human; that would be kidnapping. Nor can I sm ash so meon e with a sledgehammer; that would be, depending on the outcome, assault, attempted m urder, or murder. And the reason I cannot do these things has nothing to do with what third parties d o or don ‘t want. It has to do with the interest and desires of that particular person. It is wrong for Susan to hit Paula , not beca use oth er peo ple like Paula or because other people would be offended, but because Paula is a person. Period. Thus, there is a fundamental contrast between those objects which we can treat as we please (excep t when limited by the interests of other humans) and those which we canno t. Ordinary rocks fall into the first camp; humans, into the later. Now, what about nonhuman animals? Do they fall into the first or the se cond c amp? Or som ewhe re in between? There are reasons to believe that many animals and certainly the higher-order anima ls are more like humans than they are like rocks. Thus, we have reason to believe there are constraints on how we can legitimately treat them, regardless of our particular wishes and desires. Or so I shall argue. For the moment I will simply note that these are beliefs which most of us already have. That is, most of us presume that it is illegitimate to treat animals just anyway we wish. For exam ple, mo st of us be lieve it is wrong to wanto nly kill or torture a higher o rder m amm al. Suppose we discover that some member of our commun ity, say Jones, has a habit of picking up stray dog s or cats a nd dec apitating them w ith his hom e-ma de guillo tine’; 2 or we learn he has invented a machine which draws and quarters them. He uses these machines because he revels in th e anim als’ pain, b ecaus e he relis hes in the sight of blood; or maybe he is a scientist who w ants to stu dy their re action to stress. In this case we rightly surmise that Jones is immoral. We wouldn’t want him to be our pre sident, our fr iend, our next door neighbor, or our son-in-law. In short, we all seem to agree that they a re limits on how we can properly treat nonhuman animals, and that these limits arise becau se of the n ature of th e anim als, not m erely because of the de sires of oth er hum ans to see an imals trea ted we ll. That is, such acts are wrong not merely because other humans are bothered by them. We would think them equa lly wrong if they were secretly done so that no one else in the community knew about them. We think they are wrong because of what it does to the animal. On the other hand, we are also part of a culture which rather cavalier ly uses a nimals for food, for clothes, for research in the development of new drugs, and to determine the safety of household products. And many of these u ses req uire inflicting a great d eal of pa in on animals. Record of such uses is readily available in various academic journals, and chronicled by num erous writers on the topic’. 3 But for the reader who might be unfamiliar with them, let me briefly describe two ways in which we use animals ways which inflict substantial pain on them. Anima ls who are raised for food are obviously raised with the express purpose of making a profit for the farmer. Nothing surprising. But the implications of this are direct and obvious and deleterious to the an imals. There are two ways for a farmer to increase her profit. One is to get higher prices for her goods, the other is to spend less producing those goods. Since there is a limit on how much people will pay for meat, there is substantial financia l pressu re to dec rease th e expe nse of p roducin g the m eat. This under standa bly leads to over-crowding; after all the more animals a farmer can get into a smaller space, the less it costs to produce the meat. There are similar pressures to restrict the animals’ movement. The less the animals move, the less they eat, thus decreasing the farmer’s expense. For instance, farmers who raise chickens are inclined to put them in small `battery’ cages. They are commonly kept `eight to ten to a space smaller than a newspaper page. Unable to walk around or even stretch their wings much less build a nest the birds be come vicious a nd attac k one a nother ‘.4 The average person seems equally unfamiliar with the extensive use of animals in laboratory experim ents. Ma ny of thes e are of o nly mo derate significan ce’; 5 most of the them involve extensive pain on animals. For instance, N.J. Carlson gave hig h voltag e electric shocks to sixteen d ogs an d found that the `h igh-sho ck grou p’ acqu ired `an xiety’ faster. Or researchers in Texas constructed a pneumatically driven piston to pound an anvil into the skulls of thirteen monkeys. When it didn’t immediately produce concussions, the researchers increased the strength of the piston until it produced `cardiac damage, hemorrhages and brain dama ge’. 6 Or researchers at Harvard placed baby mice and ba by rats into cages with starving adult male rats. The adults ate them. The researchers’ conclusion: hunger is an important drive in animals. (That, of course, is some thing we are sho cked to learn; we would have never kno wn this fact otherwise). T HE O PTIONS Now, how d o we sq uare o ur abso lute revu lsion at ou r hypoth etical Jones with his animal guillotine, and our rather blithe acceptance of the treatment of animals on the farm and in the scientific and co mme rcial labo ratories? It is not imm ediately clear tha t we can . What is clear, it seems, it that we have three options, three alternative beliefs about our treatment of anim als. Thes e are: 1) If we are repulsed by Jones treatment of stray animals, we are simply being inappr opriately or unduly squeamish or sympathetic. We should have no aversion to killing, torturin g, or usin g anim als in any way w e pleas e, unles s, of course, that anima l is some one els e’s prop erty, that is, he r pet. 2) There are reasons why we should treat non-human animals better than we treat rocks; nonetheless, there are also reasons why we can use non-huma n anim als in ways we could never legitimately use humans. 3) We should be treating non-human animals more like we currently treat humans. Many of our accepted ways of using animals are, in fact, morally objectionable. The first position, it seems, is completely untenable. No sensible person , I think, is willing to adop t a position which s ays that to rturing a nimals for fun is completely acceptable; no one is willing to say that Jones is a fit mem ber of so ciety. This b elief, it seem s, is virtually unshakable. Most of you understood perfectly well what I meant when I describe d Jone s’s behavior as `torture.’ But this claim would be nonsense if we thought there were no moral limits on how we could treat animals.7 So we are left with the la tter option s. And, of course, which one we choose, will have a dramatic impact on the lives of humans and of other animals. One necessary clarification: to say that animals should be treated more like humans is not to say that they should be treated exactly like humans. For instance, we need not consider giving animals the right to vote, the right to free religious expression, or the right of free speech. As far as I can ascertain, most an imals do n’t have the necessary capabilities to exercise these rights. However, the same is true of very young children and of se verely retarded adults. That is why they don’t have these rights either: the y lack the requisite capacities. Nonetheless, the mere fact that some adult humans are not given the right to vote does n ot mea n it is legitimate to have them for lunch or to test bleach in their eyes. So why assume it is so for animals? W HY ANIMALS SHOULDN’T SUFFER NEED LESS PAIN Until now I have been trying to identify our own deeply held convictions about restriction s on the prope r treatme nt of anim als. Now it is high time to try to offer a positive defense of our ordinary understa nding; a defense which will have even more radical implications that we might have supposed. That is, I want to argue for option three above; I want to a rgue tha t there are rather strin gent lim its on wh at it is morally permis sible to do to anima ls. More s pecifically , I wish to argue that we should all b ecom e vege tarians a nd that w e shou ld dram atically curtail, if not eliminate, our use of laboratory animals. Though there are numerous arguments which can be offered in this rega rd, I want to defend one particular claim: that we should not inflict need less pain on anim als. Before I go on I should make it clear what I mean by `needless pain.’ The point can be made most clear by use of an analogy. Contrast the following cases: 1) I prick my daughter’s arm with a needle for no apparent reason (though we needn’t assume I derive any sadistic pleasure from it). 2) I am a physician and I inoculate her against typhoid. What differentiates these cases? In both I prick her arm; in both (let us presume) I inflict similar amounts of pain. Yet we consider the latter not only ju stifiable, bu t possibly obligato ry; the former we consider sadistic. Why? Because it inflicts unne cessar y pain. M y daug hter doe s not in any way bene fit from it. Thus, unnecessary pain is that which is inflicted on a sentient (feeling) creature when it is not for the good of that particular creature. The latter is necessary pain; it is pain which the creature suffers for her own good. There are two main premises in my argument. The first is the factual claim that anima ls do, in fact, feel pa in. The second is the claim that the potential of animal suffering severe ly limits what we can justifiably do to them, it constrains the way we can legitima tely use them. That an imals fee l pain That anima ls do feel p ain see ms rela tively unc ontrove rsial. It is a belief we all share. As I noted earlier we couldn’t even make sense of `torturing’ an animal if we assumed it was incapa ble of feeling pain. Nor could we understand being repulsed at Jones’s use of stray anima ls unless we thought the animals suffered at Jones’s hands. If Jones collected abandoned tin cans and cut them to pieces w ith his guillo tine, we m ig ht think J ones te rribly odd, bu t not imm oral. But more can be said. We have more than adequate behavioral evidence that anima ls feel pain and that they can suffer. Most of us have seen a dog which has been struck by a car, though not killed instantaneously. The dog convulses, bleed, and yelps. Less drastically, most of us have, at some time or another, stepped on a cat’s tail or a dog’s paw and ha ve witne ssed the anima l’s reaction . The reaction, unsurprisingly, is like our own reaction in similar cases. If someone steps on my hand, I w ill likely yell and attempt to move my hand. But we ne edn’t res t the case on beh avioral e videnc e thoug h it does seem to m e to be more than sufficient. We should also note that we share important anatomical structures with higher o rder an imals. A human being’s central nervous center is remarkably similar to that of a chimpanzee, dog, pig, and even a rat. That is not to say the brains are exactly alike; they aren’t. The cerebral cortex in human beings is more highly de velope d than in most mamm als (though not noticeably so wh en compare d with a dolphin or a Great Ap e); but the cortex is the location of our `higher brain fun ctions,’ for e xamp le, the sea t of thoug ht, speech, etc. However, the areas of the brain which neurophysiologist identity as the `pain centers’ are virtua lly identica l betwee n hum an and non-h uman anima ls. Accord ing to evolutionary biology this is exactly w hat we should expec t. The pa in centers worke d well in enhancing the survival of lower species, so they were altered only slightly in succeeding evolutionary stages. H igher br ain func tions, how ever, are condu cive to survival, and thus, have led to more dramatic advances in cerebral development. Given all this, it seems undeniable that many animals do feel pain. That they feel pain is morally relevant ‘So what?†™ someone might ask. ` Even if animals do feel p ain, why should that limit or at least se riously restrict our treatment of them? Why can’t we still use them for our purposes, whatever those purposes happen to be?’ Let’s turn the question around for a moment and ask why we think we should be able to use them for our purposes, given that they are capable of suffering? After all, we are staunc hly opposed to inflicting unnecessary pain on human beings. If animals can also feel pain, why shouldn’t we have the same reluctance to inflicting needless pain on them? A crucial tenet of ethics is that we should treat like cases alike. Th at is, we sh ould treat two cases the same unless there is some general and relevant reason which justifies the difference in treatment. Thus, two students who perform equally well in the same class should get the same grade; two who perform rather differently should receive different grades. By the same token, if two creatures feel pain and it is improp er to inflict needless pain on one of them , it would likewise be improper to inflict needless pain on the othe r. But the argumen t has pro gresse d too qu ickly. This a rgum ent wo rks only if the reason it is wrong to inflict need less pain on the one creature is that it feels pain. If there is some other reason so me rea son wh ich could differentia te hum an from non-h uman anim als then we would not be able to infer that it is illegitim ate to inflict needless pain on animals. Hence, if someone wishes to show that it is not wrong to inflict needless pain on animals, then she must identify some relevant difference between human and non-huma n animals, some differenc e which justifies this d ifference in treatm ent. And, of course , this is just wh at mos t defend ers of ou r presen t treatme nt of anim als are inclined to do. Tho ugh pe ople on ce rega rded a nimals as non-sentient creatures as mere automata that is no longer so.

Friday, January 3, 2020

Why Did Australian Officials Feel The Keep Sell Australia...

Why did Australian officials feel the need to ‘sell’ Australia in the DP camps of post-war Europe? â€Å"We are but 7, 000, 000 people and we hold 3, 000, 000 square miles of this earth’s surface.† In his speech to the House of Representatives on the 2nd August 1945, Calwell announced a target increase in population of two percent of population per year, approximately 70 000 through immigration, to increase population density. Various Australian officials travelled to the Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Occupied Europe to ‘recruit’ possible migrants. However, there were various obstacles to increasing the population, including that Australia was not well known, and not attractive to DPs, as the distance was considerable and hard to get to.†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Nobody knew what was awaiting us in Australia.† This statement by an interviewed person by Jerzy Zubrzycki, named Lydia, suggests Australia was simply not well known in the DP camps of Europe. Thus Australian officials advertised Australia as a â€Å"†¦country of salvat ion and new beginnings, and an escape route from the wartime devastation and postwar Communist perils of Europe.† This subversion directly appeals to DPs, however with â€Å"new beginnings†, there were many differences between Australia and Europe that were often unexpected by migrants. Chub presents this stark contrast between reality and the highly publicised version of Australia, including â€Å"†¦the trees and birds [which] were different†¦even the frogs croaked differently to those in Ukraine†¦Ã¢â‚¬  These representations suggest Australia was a homeland that was also pastoral and nostalgic in a European sense. On the other hand, these representations suggest attention was more towards representing Australia as a desirable resettlement destination, rather than successfully integrating immigrants into the Australian community. The features of the Australian immigration policy, and other factors including distance made it an unattractive resettlemen t destination. For these reasons, Australian officials may have felt the need to ‘sell’ Australia. Following the creation of a desirable Australia was the writing of a specific historical narrative by