Holistic Approaches to Health
Critically evaluate the impact of the currently dominant scientific paradigm (Medical Model) in relation to the use and acceptability of acupuncture
The impeding awareness and presence of therapeutic landscapes are places, settings and situations that encompass both the physical and psychological environments associated with treatment or healing, and the maintenance of health and well-being. Practices from holistic medicine, complementary medicine are used to illustrate specific humanistic concepts in further examining therapeutic landscapes and the understanding of holistic medicine. For acupuncture, the implying of alternative medicine has a major presence and persuasive attractionin the industrialized western world. The extent to which these practices have clinical efficacy according to biomedical criteriais a matter of ongoing research and debate. It may be that independent of any such efficacy, the attraction of alternative medicineis related to the power of its underlying shared beliefs andcultural assumptions. Discussion has focused on whetherthese practices have any biomedical efficacy and on potentialadverse consequences. The sharedcultural assumptions may provide vehicle for an enlarged senseof self and a renewed sense of morality and purpose, not meant to advocate or debunk alternative medicine but describes cultural dimensions of alternativemedicine as overlooked. Despite thisdiversity, much of alternative medicine shares important underlyingassumptions and themes that have allowed these movements toform a significant coalition in their historical tug of warwith conventional medicine (Cooter, 1988; Bynum and Porter, 1987; Rothstein, 1972; Gevitz, 1988). Thus, biomedicinesuffers in this bifurcation because of its associationwith sophistication and technology as opposed to the perceived simplicity of undeveloped nature (Huxtable, 1992 p. 166).
When people use alternative medicine, “the scientific enterprise”does not have to be abandoned. In fact, the label “science”in alternative medicine, as in biomedicine, is an importantsource of legitimating power, moral authority, and self-definition.Adding to the genuineness of thescientific label is the fact that training in alternative disciplinesmay involve years of study of complex knowledge bases and relations,intricate determinations of causality and empirical testingof practice (Cooper and Stoflet, 1996 p. 226). Thus, for instance in acupuncture, the biomedicine model may have assumptions that differradically from those of alternative medicine (Gordon, 1988). The contemporary and alternativemedicine’s version of science lacks the adopted biomedicalnotion of clinical experiments carried out under the controlled conditions, exemplified by randomized trials (Kaptchuk, 1998; Lilienfeld, 1982). It can be that, the science of alternative medicine is ultimately “person friendly.”Its language is one of solidarity, unity, and holism insteadof the distant, statistical, and neutral conventions of normativescience (Tambiah, 1990). For person-centered experience is the ultimateverification and reigns supreme in alternative science since, such acupuncture knowledge and simple observation are not deprecated, noplacebo effect haunts and casts doubt on the validity of therapeuticoutcomes (Kaptchuk, 1998 p. 1724; Sullivan, 1993 p. 215). The alternative medicine science has no radical skepticism. In fact,alternative medicine science sometimes takes on the appearanceof proving deeply held beliefs by selectively appropriating normative scientific studies, for instance consumer infatuationwith and hope in acupuncture use is unshakable as well as sustained by skewed attention to scientific knowledge as contrary to research evidence is being known at (Apple, 1996). Ideally, acupuncture had existed today not just in its Chinese origins but also in other parts of the world, even in the United Kingdom. The scientific paradigm adheres to the contemporary and alternative use and application of medicine and its therapies known about. The need to assume acupuncture research and such aspects of the medical model relating to its usage as well as acceptability into the UK society, and its impeding and growing health care systems and other processes deemed at. Recognizing acupuncture and how it works in the UK, from within research studies are to be discussed and analyzed critically along with some statistical examples of the acupuncture study, its safety assumptions in the UK and other relevant aspects and information of acupuncture in support of such resources from books, journals and articles linked from Google scholar, the guardian news archive/ the observer (Revill, 2005) and other academic related databases and some research points of reliability and validity of acupuncture effectiveness and practice respectively. Thus, truly known that in the United Kingdom, acupuncture is widely used in private institutions of care as well as in the National Health Society (NHS)practices, and noted in surveys of the use of complementary medicine, acupunctureis consistently cited among the most commonly used (Zollman and Vickers, 1999 p. 319). Indeed, there was about seven percent of the adult population in England have received acupuncture, and that some of the acupuncture sessions are provided by specialist practitionerswithout other medical qualifications, of whom there are over2200 in the UK (Thomas, Nicholl and Coleman, 2001 p. 4; British Acupuncture Council, 2001). Furthermore, the British Medical AcupunctureSociety has among its members over 2000 doctors who use acupuncturein hospital or general practice, as one survey estimated that, NHS provided one millionacupuncture treatments in England. The current estimated totalcost to the NHS of nearly £26 million is equivalent toall other complementary therapies as ideally combined (British Medical Acupuncture Society, 2001; Thomas, Nicholl and Coleman, 2001) The process of acupuncture involves the stimulation of specific points on theskin, usually by the insertion of needles. In its original formacupuncture was based on the principles of traditional Chinesemedicine. Traditional acupuncturists understand health in termsof energy whichcirculates between the organs along channels called meridians, as the energy must flow in the correct strength and quality througheach of these meridians and organs for health to be maintained. Many conventional healthcare professionals who practice acupuncturehave dispensed with such concepts. Acupuncture points are thoughtto correspond to physiological and anatomical features suchas peripheral nerve junctions, and diagnosis is made in purelyconventional terms. One concept thought important by some practitionersis that of “trigger points” which they believe often correspondto acupuncture points, one area of increased sensitivitywithin a muscle which is said to cause a characteristic patternof referred pain in a related segment of the body (Baldry, 1993). Some research indicates that, “acupuncture and the complementary medical modalities that involve holistic principles challenge the dominant biomedical paradigm of mechanical reductionism and therefore are considered unconventional or alternative, two of which lie within the dominant scientific paradigm, and a third that is built upon frontier ideas at the edge of the new science of acupuncture paradigm as being capable of accommodating many puzzling features of acupuncture. In order to embody the latter, it appears that a new paradigm for the life sciences is needed to address the wholeness and integrity of the organism. Nonetheless, despite this pluralistic view, working toward a unity of Eastern and Western thought may lead to a more universal understanding of acupuncture in the future” (Rubik, 1995 p. 41). In addition, there success in examining better ways in which the “acupuncture phenomenon is translated into scientific language through the mobilization of functional magnetic resonance imaging. In doing so, it explores how differences between science and traditional medicine are bridged and negotiated through an open-ended tuning process among heterogeneous elements. By showing the constructive interaction between traditional medicine and science, conception of East Asian medicines as culturally bounded and to provide an interpretation of trans-cultural norm that emphasizes its diverse and hybrid formations. Particularly, in order to explain the scientific translation of acupuncture, the adopting of performance based perspective rather than representational one with regard to science, as the scientific interpretation of acupuncture as an interactive stabilization between the acupuncture phenomenon, theory and the material procedure there is” (Kim, 2006 p. 2960). It can be that, ideal understanding of acupuncture, Chinese medicine is limited by lack of inquiry into the dynamics of research and its underlying process, the holistic model of acupuncture assumes that, ‘whole being greater than the sum of the parts’, implications for service provision and research design. The paradigm model will require comprehensive evidence and assimilation of acupuncture dominance in the UK, in ample medical care and health domains. For many patients attracted to complementary medicine its safety has been one of its principal appeals. Complementary methods, including acupuncture, are seen as less invasive, more natural,and less liable to adverse effects than more orthodox forms oftreatment. Critics of complementary medicine have, however, oftencastigated it as being dangerous, sometimes in the same breathas ridiculing complementary methods for their lack of effectivenessand scientific support (Vincent, 2001 p. 467). True, that no person will want unsafe medicine, safety is a given factor for care and acupuncture safety is also deemed to be a safe alternative as the UK carers are imbued with the importance of safe practice from the moment they start their training at the same time dislike the adverse publicity of medical accidents, the social and medical cultures, which focus on blame, are a major threat to safety in medicine. The impeachable need of a systems approach to the safe practice of acupuncture is possible, and involves making a careful and systematic assessment of every aspect of practice in a hierarchy that extends from the professional institution to factors in clinical practice and the patient, indeed, very necessary to provide positive evidence of the safety of acupuncture as such risks that acupuncture carries are the risk of traumatic injury to an internal organ, especially the pleura, by needle penetration, risk of causing bacterial infections in deep structures, though this seems to be small, probably because the needle tip is too small to carry infected material from the skin. The usual way to obtain an estimate of the frequency of adverse events is to conduct prospective surveys specifically for the purpose in the UK as reported. For example, safety of acupuncture treatment for osteoarthritis can be compared with that of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, as about 12% of these people will die, and it has been estimated that hemorrhage caused by NSAIDs are the cause of death in about 2000 people in the UK each year. The UK patients should be provided with information on the risks of acupuncture before giving consent to treatment. While the precise details and method of presentation will vary according to the circumstances and the needs of individual patients, as a minimum they should be informed of the risks of drowsiness, minor bleeding, and the aggravation of symptoms as well as fainting possibilities. For several acupuncture cases that works there are information effectively noted by the guardian news archive in the United Kingdom for one, there assumes that acupuncture relies on a different language and different tools from Western medicine, but however strange it seems at first, as controversy has raged for years over whether acupuncture has only a placebo effect that makes people feel psychologically and physically better but changes nothing physiologically. However, one study reveals for the first time that it provokes a specific response in the brain, shedding light on how it might affect the body’s pain pathways. This helps to explain why both patients and health professionals trained in Western medicine are increasingly turning to this ancient form of Chinese healing. Aside, one study in the British Medical Journal showed that patients with osteoarthritis in the knee who received acupuncture a well as an anti-inflammatory painkiller suffered less pain and stiffness than those who received the drug plus sham acupuncture, where the needle did not penetrate the skin also, some children with hay fever and nasal allergies had fewer sneezing bouts and congestion after acupuncture compared with a placebo group, in research carried out in Hong Kong. Indeed, one particular research have indicated the “conjunction of growing popularity, complementary and alternative medicine in the United Kingdom has witnessed increasing professionalization, as prompted by the landmark Parliamentary Inquiry during November of the year 2000. Professionalization has become significant strategy for practitioner associations and a key focus for the government, media, and patient groups, being driven by concern over the interests of patients and consumers, and in relation to the possible integration of certain forms of complementary and alternative medicine into publicly funded healthcare” (Clarke, Doel and Segrott, 2004 p. 330). There can be certain extent to which alternative therapies are being holistic as for instance, the acupuncture process in the UK, alternative medicine is contrasted with biomedical basis of orthodox medicine along with a critique of which there led to the development of contemporary notions of holistic acupuncture practice. The good background to the holistic health movement is then charted with reference to the rise of the medical profession, which has become increasingly unified around biomedicine from within largely holistic nature of alternative health care today is duly illustrated by some case studies of specific alternative therapies as well as their practice contextualization. However, it is argued that not every aspect of alternative medicine can be seen as holistic, nor should it be assumed that every elements of the known practice are non-holistic as health professionals become involved with alternative therapies in order to extend an ideal holistic approach to UK’s health care (Saks, 1997 p. 5).
For some acupuncture statistics found into the UK research context, there can linking evidence of certain conditions of research giving ample weight into the practice of acupuncture in the UK as such statistics coming from a particular investigation, meta analysis of practice and philosophy in acupuncture as it remain an issue within mainstream healthcare in the UK. In spite of the relative integration of acupuncture within orthodox medical practice, the lack of scientific paradigm conformity continues to divide traditional from Western approaches. This study sought to explore the perceptions and attitudes of existing acupuncture clinicians in the UK, from a range of professional backgrounds and affiliations, towards traditional acupuncture philosophy and practice. In doing so, it attempted to determine the extent to which traditional approaches were both regarded as legitimate and utilized in practice within mainstream healthcare. For stats, such response rates of 60.8% were being obtained, whereas 59% and 72% (Shao, Borthwick, Lewith and Hopwood, 2005) of respondents in BMAS and AACP groups used such known theory. Another point is placed at the acupuncture for such smoking cessation as the statistics research implied that acupuncture is promoted as a treatment for smoking cessation, and is believed to reduce withdrawal symptoms as there performed meta-analysis using a fixed effects model. For stats outcome, acupuncture was not superior to sham acupuncture in smoking cessation in any time point as odds ratio for early outcomes was 1.22 (95% confidence interval 0.99 to 1.49) (White, Rampes and Ernst, 2000 updated 2002), the odds ratio after 6 months was 1.38 (95% confidence interval 0.90 to 2.11) and after 12 months 1.02 (95% confidence interval 0.72 to 1.43) (White, Rampes and Ernst, 2000 updated 2002), when acupuncture was compared with other anti-smoking interventions, there were no differences in outcome at any time point and that there appeared to be superior to no intervention in the results but not duly sustained and have asserted that there has been no clear evidence that acupuncture is effective for smoking cessation. Therefore, the assimilation geared towards effective medical model of acupuncture usage and acceptance in the UK has assumptions that contemporary and alternative medication is a success as the British Medical Association had suggested the encompasses of treatments not taught in the medical curriculum as considerations of acupuncture is being evidently recognized. Thus, in UK, doctors who practise alternative medicine are practitioners, acting as mediators between the public demand for treatment and the evidence-based provision of medical services as inevitable that economic and social pressures will then encourage contemporary and alternative medicine development through the overall function stance of acupuncture areas in the UK, as well as in the determined practice environment as for acupuncture stature, some illnesses for which conventional medicine will be offering in adequate patterns of care and success in care path, the process has recently been completed in the United Kingdom (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2004) with the support of the Foundation for Integrated Medicine. Contemporary and alternative medicine is clearly known by UK and to some other Western nations but it may be a mistake to read too much into the use of any particular therapeutic intervention. Patients may be using contemporary and alternative medicine to empower themselves in the management of their chronic illnesses. Indeed, without adequate research funding and the establishment of high quality research network, as well as a critical and evaluative approach to education and practice of acupuncture, it will be impossible for UK health team to answer these vital questions about the increased use of contemporary and alternative medicine and its combined therapeutic efficacy, learning that contemporary and alternative medicine does incur positive desire for acupuncture ways to play vital role in the management of such diseases and illness points.
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