Modality and Public Health Naturopathic Medicine Is Essay

Modality and Public Health

Naturopathic medicine is a system for primary healthcare described as a science, an art, philosophy and the practice of diagnosing, treating and preventing illnesses. This is usually practiced by registered or licensed naturopathic physicians (Meadows, 2013). Naturopathic medicine is a tradition which is science-based which promotes the wellness of patients through the identification of unique aspects of every patient and then employs natural therapies that are non-toxic in order to restore their psychological, physiological as well as structural balance. Naturopathic medicine is not usually defined by the type of substances that are used rather it is defined by principles which underlie and therefore determine its practice (The Healing Arts Center, 2010). These principles include; the healing power that exists in nature, finding the cause of illnesses, causing no harm to patients, treating the whole person, prevention of illnesses and doctors acting as teachers to patients. Naturopathic practitioners go through general training that involves the specialization in natural medicine.

Benefits of naturopathic medicine

Naturopathic physicians have become successful when it comes to treating chronic illnesses which usually are unresponsive to convectional medicine. Some of these include pain, fatigue, disturbance of sleep and disorders of the digestive system they respond to the needs of patients on an individual level and come up with treatment plans which comprise of botanical medicine, nutritional supplements and diet therapy. Naturopathic physicians have a clear understanding of the art of healing which is more than just giving nutritional supplements and herbal remedies.in order to clearly understand the context of the illness of a patient, a naturopathic physician takes their time to listen to a patient's story.Most of the patients are fully aware of what the problem is and what has to be done but they are unaware of how they can turn this into an action plan. Therefore, the naturopathic physician plays an important role in translating the patient's story into an action plan which will aid the patient in their path to recovery. There are control trials that have been done on a random basis which suggest that naturopathic treatments like acupuncture, botanical medicines, natural therapies and physiotherapy are quite effective when it comes to treating conditions like migraine headaches, hypertension, asthma, depression and so on.

Public health system

In order to find out the exact role that naturopathy plays in the public health system we should first clearly understand what public health is all about. Public health involves promoting lifestyles that are healthy, researching diseases and what causes them and finally looking at both external and internal factors on the general health of the population. Public health simply involves the prevention of diseases, prolonging lives and health promotion through informed choices and organized efforts of organizations, communities, public and private sector and individuals. There are various areas of intersection between naturopathic medicine and the public health system which include focusing on health as opposed to diseases, emphasizing on promoting health, health education and the empowerment of patients and an approach that is proactive and preventive as opposed to a reactive one that focusses mainly on treatment. Public health is different from convectional medicine as it looks at a community that is in a healthy state and preventing diseases as opposed….....