Nontraditional Healthcare Practices in Different Cultures and their Importance

Nontraditional Healthcare Practices
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Nontraditional Healthcare Practices             The use of nontraditional health care practices is on the rise across the United States and around the world. The quest for quality health care accounts for the increasing use of complementary and alternative health care practices around the globe towards achieving the desired patient outcomes. These complementary and alternative healthcare practices deviate from conventional healthcare and medical practices. They are not dependent on scientific research and trials to prove their efficiency as medical interventions for diagnosing and treating diseases. The cultural beliefs and practices of individuals or groups across different communities worldwide play a significant role in the increasing use of nontraditional health care practices in the U.S. and around the world, even without their integration into the mainstream health care system. A recent survey conducted by Pew Research Center, for instance, reveals that almost half of the American adult population have tried nontraditional or alternative health care remedies such as acupuncture, energy therapies, and even herbal medicine (Pew Research Center, 2017). The survey further posits that about a fifth of the American adult population has opted to use nontraditional medical practices instead of traditional western or conventional health care practices (Pew Research Center, 2017). It is, therefore, important to explore these nontraditional health care practices as embraced across different cultural settings in the United States and other countries. Provided herein is an exploration of some of the nontraditional health care practices and their manifestation across different cultures to understand their influence on the delivery of quality health care and establish some of the underlying reasons for their rising use across the world. Nontraditional Health Care Practices in Three Different Culture Different cultures around the world are characteristic of indigenous health care or medical practices that serve to treat and prevent identified health care problems. The Chinese, Native American, and Indian cultures, for instance, make use of diverse nontraditional health care practices that are widely used within and outside these communities. Indian Culture             The Indian culture is characterized by a holistic nontraditional health care system of indigenous medical practices that thrive on the wellbeing of the body, mind, and spirit. According to the Indian culture, a person’s health and wellbeing are a function of innate harmony or harmonious interconnectedness of the body, mind, and spirit in what is referred to as Ayurveda, the science of life. Its origin dates back to over 3000 years ago, consisting of a wide range of nontraditional health care practices such as the use of herbs, meditation, physical exercise, controlled breathing, massage, and exposure to sunlight (Madhavan, 2015). It is also characterized by Ayurvedic medications, which often consist of mixtures of herbs and other local medicines (Madhavan, 2015). Howe...