Nursing Diagnosis and Natural Therapies

Abstract

Work with nursing diagnosis has provided a classification system for what nursing does and has helped to focus nursing interventions to include more independent nursing care. Natural therapies (an umbrella term covering the many healing and health promotion modalities, traditional and modern, that do not use prescription pharmaceuticals or surgery) are among the more independent care modalities available to nursing. Accepted nursing interventions cover a growing number of practices, such as progressive relaxation, guided imagery, yoga, therapeutic touch, music therapy, active listening, aromatherapy, reflexology, advocacy, and centered presence. Most of these nursing interventions would seem to fit comfortably within the realm of natural therapies. As the illness-healing paradigms shift and converge, and the concept of holism rises more and more to the fore, the role of the nurse is shifting from caregiver to healer. Nursing diagnosis, as a classification system for nursing phenomena, can serve as a mechanism to enhance visibility of this healing role of the nurse.

Music is Beneficial for Awake Craniotomy Patients: A Qualitative Study

“…2,7,9,10,11,15,27 The use of music as a non-pharmacological medium may potentially improve the pre-operative, perioperative and post-operative (recovery) situations of surgical patients without interfering with planned treatment and prescribed medications. 7 Music therapy has been used in the past to help alleviate pre-operative anxiety.…”

“…The therapeutic effects provided by music are recognized to be both physiological and psychological in nature and have been demonstrated in a number of clinical studies that offered patients a music intervention at some point in their course of treatment 2 7 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 15 , 27 The use of music as a non-pharmacological medium may potentially improve the pre-operative, perioperative and post-operative (recovery) situations of surgical patients without interfering with planned treatment and prescribed medications 7 . Music therapy has been used in the past to help alleviate pre-operative anxiety 38 .…”

The best of both approaches

“…If Eisenberg and his colleagues had included them in their final report, the conclusion would have been that around 80% of Americans use CAM, rather than the 34% reported for 1990 and 42% for 1997. Other researchers have used even broader definitions, including physiotherapy, counselling, nutrition counselling, active listening and patient advocacy as alternative or ‘natural’ therapies (Daniels and McCabe, 1994; Fawcett et al ., 1994).…”