THE '22 TIMES

Technology has changed the way things are normally done in medicine and healthcare. Sometimes for the better, other times for worse. Technology has made collecting data and managing of health records easier with computerized methods instead of the age-old, hard copy hospital file which is quite difficult to find at times. Technology also makes us aware of ailments of global importance with social media updates to inform us of spread of these ailments and prevention techniques. Improvements in technology has aided to the discovery of cures for many diseases and better treatment methods for conditions such as cancers. All these may affect the paradigm of medicine we are used to in some ways. The true challenge however is the scourge of the internet and mobile phone applications that tend to replace the actual visit to the hospital or the input of a health professional. Doctor visits can be expensive and a bit inconvenient at times so why not just use the internet or an applicat...

Health Paradigms A paradigm is a generally accepted model for making sense of phenomena in a given discipline at a particular time (Jonas, 2005). It is a shared understanding among scientists or scholars working in a discipline regarding the important problems, structures, values, and assumptions determining that discipline. The health system has a number of paradigms by which it operates to interpret and explain the reasoning behind diseases in all its complexities. Some of these paradigms include: ●      The biomedical paradigm ●      Behavioral paradigm ●      Family support system ●      Psychoanalytic paradigm ●      Cognitive paradigm ●      Biopsychosocial health model – the working paradigm for the WHO THE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PARADIGM The biopsychosocial framework assumes health problems are hardly limited to just one domain of human...

INTRODUCTION Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as defined by the National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is a diverse group of medical and healthcare systems, practices and products that are not generally considered part of mainstream medicine. These forms of treatments/health interventions are used exclusively or in addition to mainstream standard medical practice either as therapeutic measures or to improve health and wellbeing. They include spiritual and faith-based healing, cupping, acupuncture, chiropractic care, herbal or dietary medicine, Reiki and healing touch, Ayurvedic medicine, etc. Despite general acceptance and belief by users to be effective, CAM, for the greater part, lacks scientific proof for efficacy, standardised measures (including dosage) and techniques. For these reasons, it was difficult to integrate CAM into mainstream clinical care. However, this trend is gradually changing as more healthcare practitioners are...