Purpose: To investigate satisfaction of cancer patients, who have undergone cancer surgery, with nursing care and the association of patient satisfaction with demographic and clinical characteristics. Materials and methods: The study population consisted of 181 patients with cancer who have undergone surgery and were hospitalized in clinics of University General Hospital of Greece. The instrument used in the study was the «Measurement of patient satisfaction scale» (MPSS). The model of multiple linear regression was used with the method of backward stepwise linear regression. Results: The results of the study showed that patients were overall satisfied with nursing care. The areas they were less satisfied were «Resting time», «Information», «Education», «Personal preferences» and «opportunities for participation in care». The patient satisfaction had a statistically significant association with the following characteristics of the patients: (a) patient education, less educated patients showed higher levels of satisfaction (p<0.001) and (b) the hospitalization at the chemotherapy clinic, patients hospitalized at chemotherapy clinic showed higher levels of satisfaction than patients hospitalized in the other two clinics (p=0.002). Also, there was a statistically significant association between the patients education level and the item «I wish nurses have knowledge about alternative methods of dealing with some disease symptoms» (r=-0.22, p=0.003). Conclusions: The training of the nursing staff that work in clinics where patients with cancer are hospitalized, is necessary not only at a scientific level but also at a communication level. The satisfaction of surgical patients with cancer should be continually evaluated in order to assess patients’ needs, to improve poor or problematic aspects of care and to manage patients’ personalized and expressed needs.
Celem przeprowadzonego tu krótkiego przeglądu było usystematyzowanie, a także wykazanie skuteczności technik osteopatycznych w różnego typu terapiach bólu głowy. Zestawione powyżej eksperymenty potwierdzają skuteczność manipulacyjnej terapii osteopatycznej OMT w tym zakresie. Leczenie osteopatyczne w całym swym wachlarzu stosowanych technik, daje ogromne możliwości w redukcji bólu i poprawy samopoczucia osobom cierpiącym, szczególnie na migreny oraz napięciowe bóle głowy. Analizowane wyniki wskazują także, że zalecana terapia stanowi bardzo dobre uzupełnienie standardowej terapii lekowej, dzięki czemu zażywanie dużych dawek leków można znacznie ograniczyć. Badacze tych zagadnień zwracają jednocześnie uwagę na fakt, aby przyszłe eksperymenty były planowane z odpowiednio dużą wielkością próby. W celu poprawienia jakości dobrej praktyki medycznej, zachęcają również osteopatów do stosowania systematycznej oceny zdarzeń niepożądanych w dobranej odpowiednio terapii manipulacyjnej oraz całościowego, interdyscyplinarnego podejścia do leczenia bólu.
As an ongoing tendency in Western cultures the body has gained more importance both in mundane and transcendent issues. Contrary to the Christian (and, in Estonian context, especially Lutheran) understandings of body and flesh as obstacles, “spiritual approach makes the body itself the site of the sacred: the contemporary person relates to transcendence and the divine on the basis of the experience of his/her own body” (Giordan 2009: 233). Physical dimension is also an important element for Estonian spiritual practitioners. For instance, popular practices like yoga or taijiquan, although in Western forms taken often as mere physical training, cultivate different body perception and lead to a spiritual experience through physical means. Participation in alternative medical and spiritual practices increases people’s bodily awareness, making the body more ‘present’. The practices of new spirituality often emphasise the role of the body and its sensations. For example, in some teachings, the body has something that can be seen as its own ‘consciousness’ and/or ‘language’, which mediates the ‘inner’ and ‘natural’ knowledge. Practitioners try to establish a dialogue with the body, to hear its voice and interpret its signs properly. The body is seen as an ‘intelligent’ partner, dissolving the rigid dualism of the mind as a conscious subject and the body as a material object. Based on fieldwork observations, in-depth interviews and conversations as well as an Internet-based questionnaire, the article observes the different roles that the body and body-communication take in the Estonian spiritual milieu. It is visible how spiritual practices lead to different body-awarenesses and conceptualisations of the body. New spirituality offers both physical means and specific meanings for novel embodied experiences and understandings of the role of the body.
The Indian System of Medicine known as ‘Ayurveda’, had been in use from time immemorial. It was the main system of healthcare in the ancient and medieval period but has presently become a contemporary system today. It has its own principles developed during its peak which formed the basis for stable concepts upon which the whole system has grown and developed. But today due to various political, social, cultural, etc. turmoils that had resulted due to repeated and consistent invasion on India right from the ages for almost 8 centuries have resulted in its fall of status from main system to a contemporary or alternate system. But from the last two decades, the failure of Modern system of medicine to provide safe and desired health status to many people has resulted in retracing their steps towards this science. Today, education system of Ayurveda is far more different from the past methods as it has undergone drastic changes totally. The result of this change has also affected the field and the science too. A question thus emerges as to how far this methodology and understanding will help it to reach the levels and importance that it was in the past with the present system of education. The present chapter is an attempt to give a detailed review of the education system of India and its relative effect with respect to Ayurvedic education.
This paper aims to explore two opposite concepts of the human body – according to conventional medicine and according to alternative (holistic) medicine – and to show the mutual interpenetration of these two concepts in the modern world. Conventional medicine sees the body as an endless collection of symptoms spread all over its surface. It presents the body as a way of localizing pain, so in the biomedical discourse the body appears as a place of defining and describing pain. It is located in individual parts, organs, limbs, etc. Alternative medicine looks at the human body from the perspective of structural, chemical and psychological unity, which constantly adapts to the changing conditions of the external environment. It sees illness not as a disorder of one particular organ or system, but as a disorder of the whole organism. However, regardless of the clear distinction between these two concepts in the legal, scientific and ethical spheres and regardless of the general medicalisation of the modern world, these two approaches to the human body are simultaneously accepted by patients.
The article discusses one of the healing strategies used by Laine Roht, a well-known folk healer from southern Estonia, in the 1980s; namely, she demanded that the patients turning to her bring a referral letter from their doctor. This kind of behaviour was a response to the state’s prohibition of folk medicine methods, and aimed to promote the image that the healer worked in cooperation with professional physicians. These referral letters from medical doctors as well as other written documentation concerned with healing constitute interesting folkloric and psychological research material. The article gives an overview of the healing rituals applied to the patients, diagnoses with which they turned to the healer, the origin of both doctors and patients, and the role of printed materials in the 20th-century healer’s tradition and her healing ritual. The author also characterises contemporary media images of healers and the role of the media as basis for the healer’s fame.
On the basis of Virumaa material, the article discusses healing words as well as charms that were used to regulate communication between human beings and the world of spirits. Healing words richly varied in form made use of fragments of prayers, Bible texts, and hymnals, and were based on legend material, allusions, and mythic worldview. The article gives an overview of a) the relationship between oral and written lore in charm tradition, connections with fictional and real books of wisdom; b) exchange of language codes; c) regulations of word-magic behaviour; d) healing charms and charms regulating social relations, housekeeping, and humans’ relationship with nature. The second half of the article discusses changes in healers’ healing tradition. During the past century, folk medicine integrated knowledge from different schools, and the importance of alternative and complementary medicine, such as yoga, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and music therapy (most of these cosmopolitan), increased. So we can conclude that cosmopolitan folk medicine exists side by side with official medicine. Another significant trend rising to the fore highlights the importance of local folk medicine, which emphasises traditional values and creates novel cultural interpretations. To characterise the changes, the article introduces four healers, ranging from a half-mythic witch-herder to the healers-innovators of medical methods and local culture.
Therapeutic fasting has a long history. Nowadays, as an alternative therapy method, they enjoy great popularity. Descriptions and theories about them can be followed not only in various publications, but also on the Internet: in online forums, posts and comments on Twitter, videos on YouTube, social media among others. A group created on Facebook under the name “Fans of hunger (therapeutic hunger)” is of a particular interest. Posts that can be followed here perfectly illustrate the popularity of this alternative method of treatment and the influence of any publications encouraging starvation on its followers. They also show, in many cases, a lack of reflexivity, a strongly emotional and, to a low degree, rational attitude to all information, which is also portrayed by the aversion to official medicine and scientific research. The article points out the approach to starvation of the discussed group of amateurs, most often lacking medical knowledge, and attempts to show that complete trust in unproven and insufficiently documented methods of treatment, following current fads in an unreflective manner and without checking their possible real effects, may even have a tragic end.
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