Holistic Care

Holistic Health Care For Clarence & Williamsville, NY

One Definition: a multi-dimensional approach which includes all relevant aspects of a person's life in diagnosis and treatment. This would include consideration of mental/emotional/spiritual, environmental/nutritional and structural/functional stresses.

Holistic Health is actually an approach to life. Rather than focusing on illness or specific parts of the body, this approach to health considers the whole person and how he or she interacts with his or her environment. It emphasizes the connection of mind, body, and spirit. The goal is to achieve maximum well-being, where everything is functioning the very best that is possible. With Holistic Health, people accept responsibility for their own level of well-being, and everyday choices are used to take charge of one's own health

The Triad of Health

This concept holds that the requisites for good health can be grouped into three broad categories. Together they represent the interaction between all the known influences affecting our well-being. The three categories are:

1. Mental/Emotional/Spiritual

2. Environmental/Chemical/Nutritional

3. Structural/Functional (NMS)

Each of these categories correspond to one side of an equilateral triangle. Stress (imbalance) from either category will inevitably affect the other two if allowed to continue. If the cause is not removed, disease eventually results.

A Definition of Stress

"Any stimulus or succession of stimuli, of such magnitude as to tend to disrupt to homeostasis of the organism; when mechanisms fail or become disproportionate or in-coordinate, the stress may be considered an injury, resulting in disease, disability or death" - Blakiston's New Gould Medical Dictionary

The Stages of Disease

But stress doesn't usually result in instant disease. What happens along the way? Consider the following basic stages as part of the concept of stress, starting at the cellular level:

1. Stress (from whatever source) results in lowered tissue resistance, making tissues more susceptible to adverse influences.

2. Stress exceeds body's ability to adapt, resulting in cellular/tissue dysfunction and damage.

3. Continued dysfunction eventually leads to enough damage (and nerve irritation) to cause SYMPTOMS. This can be many years in the making, e.g. osteoarthritis, or heart disease. It can also be very rapid, such as immediate physical trauma.

4. Enough damage accumulates to result in the labeling of a Disease or Condition.

5. If the cause is not adequately addressed (by physician and patient), continued dysfunction will lead to greater impairment and eventually result in death. Removing a symptomatic organ may eliminate the symptoms, but if the imbalance continues, "disease" will eventually express itself in another way. For example, a hysterectomy may "cure" severe menstrual problems, but probably won't affect the underlying cause, which could later manifest as breast cancer.

Note that symptoms do not appear until some damage has already been done. How much damage required to produce symptoms depends on the tissues involved and many other factors.

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