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APA
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Health, Medicine, Nursing
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Essay
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:
Cultural Assessment
Essay Instructions:
This is a formal written paper documenting the student\'s understanding of cultural issues affecting the healthcare of two different cultures. The two cultures must be examined, analyzed, compared and contrasted throughout the formal paper. Discuss cultural practices that are healthy and promote health promotion. Discuss cultural practices that are unhealthy and detrimental. The American culture CANNOT be one of the two cultures. The student must use a vareity of references to document the information presented in the formal paper. Internet journals, books, and personal communication with an individual of the culture may be used as resources. The stundent must reference resources in the body of the paper according to modified APA format. The bullets below should not necessarily be used as specific paragraphs. This is a formal written paper. Be sure to read the specific criteria before writing the paper.
I. Cultural Assessment
* Primary language spoken by the people in the culture.
*Expected roles of family members (man, woman, husband, wife, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles)
*How the people in this culture define health and maintain health
*How the people in this culture define illness, what the root cause of illness and disease is and how an individual in this culture is expected to act when sick.
*Key individual in the family/community who usually makes health related decisions
II. Healing Practices and Rituals
*Health promotion activities, healing ritual or practices this culture believes promotes well-being or hasten recovery from illness
*Religious healing system predominately practiced by people in this culture.
*Role of religious beliefs and practices during health and illness, the role of significant religious representatives during health and illness.
*Special rites or blessings for those with a serous or terminal illness
*Acceptable treatment options such as traditional medicine, holistic medicine, surgery, blood transfusions, organ donation, and advance directives in this cultrue (do not limit this to these treatment options only).
*Complimentary Alternative Medicine (CAM) in this culture; the atitudes, values, beliefs about specific life events such birth, marrieage, aging, and death about individuals in this culture.
*Cultrual beliefs about afterlife beliefs about burial and funeral preferences.
Essay Sample Content Preview:
Cultural Assessment
(Name)
(Course)
(Instructor’s Name)
(Date)
Cultural Assessment:
The Chinese and Filipino Cultures
The Chinese Culture
When people hear the word “China” they think of a vast and exotic country in the Orient with one of the oldest cultures in the world. The Chinese have been known to have a unique, rich and wonderful culture that focuses on health and spirituality (Pillai, n.d.). Their traditions vary from one province to another and just like their traditions, they have different languages like Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, etc. but their official language is Mandarin.
The traditional Chinese family functions under both the patrilineal and patriarchal design. Patrilineal means that the lineage of the family runs through the males and that family membership is inherited from the father. Patriarchal means the family is led by the male members of the family. The Chinese culture also operates on filial piety. Filial piety means that the elders in the family have higher authority and respect over younger members of the family. The elders are the decision-makers of the family in all aspects where a decision is needed. They also pay reverence to those who have passed on and failure to do so means bad luck for the family. The Chinese usually have extended families and kinship terms are given to every position in the family (Gailliard, 2010), for example, shu: father’s younger brother, hsiung: elder brother, mei: younger sister, etc.
The Chinese have many beliefs and most are holistic in nature. This means their beliefs are connected and can be applied to all aspects of their life like health, wealth, success, society, family, etc. The Chinese are the first to have a medical culture. With 5,000 years of history, a deep and immense knowledge of medical science was formed ADDIN Mendeley Citation{9986180a-f6dc-49cb-b898-138bd507f28f} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/intro/medicine.htm", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
Yin-Yang and Qi are two of the most well known Chinese beliefs. It is believed that Yin-Yang represents the understanding of how things work. Yin represents cold, dark, passive, downward and weak while Yang represents hot, strong, bright, upward and active. The outer circle represents “everything”, while the white and black parts represent the interaction between the two energies. Things in life are not completely black and white that is why the Yin-Yang symbol is also not completely black and white. Despite the differences of the two energies they cannot exist without each other ADDIN Mendeley Citation{bdfa6162-c3bc-461b-a1f7-5e04f09afacb} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/118Kaleidoscope361.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
The concept of health preserving is a product of the natural views stated above. It is in light of these concepts that the Chinese established rich and effective methods of health preserving like spiritual toning, use of Chinese herbal medicines, food and medicine diets, and health care in the four seasons thus forming Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ADDIN Mendeley Citation{d84dd24d-c30d-4270-a9ca-eb83c79fb372} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/118Kaleidoscope207.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
Despite Chinese modernization, when it comes to their health, the Chinese still use Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM can be traced back to ancient times, over several thousands of years ago. TCM includes integrated system of theories like the theory of Yin-Yang, theory of Five Elements, the viscera, pharmacology or Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion. The therapeutic principles of TCM includes biao and ben, the inclusion of factors such as climatic and seasonal conditions, geographic localities and the patient’s personal conditions in the treatment and dispelling xie qi while strengthening zheng qi. The principle of biao or branch and ben or root indicates the primary and secondary relationship of disease and syndromes. For example, etiology is ben and symptoms is biao; primary disease is ben and secondary disease is biao, etc. this principle is used to treat symptoms at the acute stage and to treat the root cause at the chronic stage. The principle of treatment based on climatic and seasonal condition is time; geographic locality which is place; and the patient’s personal condition which is personal characteristics. These should be included in the treatment of the disease’s certain factors. Zheng qi is the body’s ability to resist disease and xie qi is the pathogenic factors. Strengthening zheng qi is used when the body’s resistance is weak and the pathogenic factors are not strong. Dispelling xie qi is used when there are excessive pathogenic factors and an also weakened body resistance. Strengthening zheng qi first then dispelling xie qi is done when both are not in a weakened state. Simultaneously strengthening and dispelling is done when body resistance is weak and pathogens are excessive. This is best used when complementing each other ADDIN Mendeley Citation{d0c51cf8-784d-4e6e-80f1-cc0ad430a4b6} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/118Kaleidoscope4649.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
Diagnosis and treatment are the bases of TCM which stresses yin and yang. Diagnosis involves two parts: the method of diagnosis and the determining treatment based on the signs and symptoms. The method of diagnosis is comprised of sizhen: inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry and palpation. Inspection entails observing the patient’s complexion, expression, posture, tongue and the color of his excrements and secretions to establish the conditions of the internal organs. Auscultation and olfaction involves listening to the patient’s heart, his breathing and discerning the smell coming from the patient. Inquiry consists of asking the patient or companions about the onset, cause and course of the illness, past medical history, chief complaints, living conditions and lifestyle, etc. Palpation involves touching, pressing, feeling special parts of the body and checking the patient’s pulse. Treatment is based on Yin-Yang. These are obtained from the data from the sizhen process. The disease can be classified as Yin syndromes which include the patient’s internal organs, cold and deficiencies; Yang syndromes involve the external body, heat and excess. Health can be obtained by the existence of both entities in proper proportions ADDIN Mendeley Citation{56ba390b-dca3-44a1-ac8f-3c4e1633fe0b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/118Kaleidoscope4115.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
TCM is also known for its unique therapies like the use of Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture, moxibustion, fire cupping and TCM massage.
Chinese herbal medicines are widely used to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases. Its invention and application has a history of thousands of years. After the founding of New China in 1949, researches have been done in different fields such as botany, chemistry, pharmacology and clinical science to provide scientific basis for the authenticity of herbal medicines. After scientific evidence was recognized, institutions on scientific research, teaching and production of Chinese medicines were established ADDIN Mendeley Citation{3d447a97-3017-435b-be24-61c86723e46f} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/7Kaleidoscope4073.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2011", "8", "4" ] ] }, "id" : "ITEM-1", "note" : "
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