[chicagrl72]

i come from a very holistically minded background and want to know if any nurses out there are able to use and holistic practices to help patients

by this i even mean ....
helping pts analyze their diets etc..

i feel nutrition is so overlooked ...esp in the medically and american society

just wondering

[CharlieRN]

"Holistic" is a really broad term. It covers everything from nutrition to witchcraft. I don't like it as a term because it is letting a lot of "woo-woo" get into the practice of medicine. It makes quackery sound respectable.

Call what you want to do "nutrition counseling", get yourself some certification as a nutritionist, and go for it. Nutrition is a valid area of scientific study. See to it that what you teach is supported by good research. In this day there is no excuse for teaching "old wives tales" as if they were just as good as solid research. A registered nurse should understand what science is and how the process of increasing our scientific knowledge base works.

If you find you have beliefs for which you can't find scientific support, then maybe what you need to be doing is research studies. You don't need much in the way of qualifications to do research. Just a willingness to be rigously honest, patient, keep accurate records, and don't jump to easy conclusions. A little creativity in figuring out double blind studies to test the claimed "holistic" effects, would help too.

It was a student who proved that "theraputic touch" was hooey. She showed that 21 professional practitioners of TT could not even detect the supposed "human energy field" they claimed they could feel and manipulate to cure and comfort patients. The only special equipment she used was a cardboard screen and a towel. If they could not see her they scored no better than chance on guessing if she was holding her hand near them or not. Best of all her results were recently duplicated by rresearchers in France.

[canoehead]

Holistic doesn't necessarily mean "old wives tales"

Having good nutrition, dealing with body stressors, counselling and rituals can make a big difference in the body's resources. If people feel stronger mentally and ready to deal with their illness it may improve their outcome. Even if it doesn't- if only they find the experience of illness less devastating, well I can get behind that.

And, another thing, just because insurance won't cover it doen't mean its not beneficial. Lots of times people's definition of alternative is whatever the insurance company says it is.

[DRTCBear]

And another student who proved that Emily Rosa's research on TT was scientific misconduct, a publishing fraud, and that poor little Emily is still clueless - years later, about research, design of experiments, and data analysis. You really ought to do your research homework before spouting off... Research is not for the weak and simpleminded!

bear
It was a student who proved that "theraputic touch" was hooey. She showed that 21 professional practitioners of TT could not even detect the supposed "human energy field" they claimed they could feel and manipulate to cure and comfort patients. The only special equipment she used was a cardboard screen and a towel. If they could not see her they scored no better than chance on guessing if she was holding her hand near them or not. Best of all her results were recently duplicated by rresearchers in France.[/quote]

[CharlieRN]

How quickly we get to the personal insults. I gather you are a TT practioner, Bear. Are you willing to put your talents to the test?

[Nurse Ratched]

No personal attacks, please. The comments have already been addressed.

[DRTCBear]

Sorry Charlie,

I am not a TT practitioner, I am a nurse-statistician. Invitations to Randi style challenges are responded to appropriately - with gales of laughter...

It strikes me as quite odd that a post that derogates TT practitioners and extols the virtues of what was clearly an unscientific, even fraudulent article in JAMA, is perfectly acceptable, but a post that points out that endorsing such an article is misguided is not. Pseudoscience at its worst.

bear

[zenman]

Originally Posted by CharlieRN

It was a student who proved that "theraputic touch" was hooey. She showed that 21 professional practitioners of TT could not even detect the supposed "human energy field" they claimed they could feel and manipulate to cure and comfort patients. The only special equipment she used was a cardboard screen and a towel. If they could not see her they scored no better than chance on guessing if she was holding her hand near them or not. Best of all her results were recently duplicated by rresearchers in France.

Charlie, you need to increase your research "readings." This study made the JAMA look silly. They were even called on the carpet by a scientist who was a member of a skeptical society who said if they wanted to debunk something they should at least do it correctly. Consider that:

1. a sixth grade student conducted the experiment

2. the girl's mother, an RN, was a co-founder of Quackwatch Inc. The president of this organzation, a Stephen Barrett, M.D., is a retired psychiatrist who writes books out of his basement...an underground publisher I'd say. LOL. He has made a fool of himself testifying in several court cases and even blew up in one and had a temper tantrum. His organization has been exposed in court for deceiving the public and lost a major lawsuit in California Superior Court where the judge made a ruling on his credibility...or lack of it! Do you think the girl's mother was an unbaised researcher?

3. Critics of the study pointed out that there were serious flaws in the study design

4. JAMA altered their peer-review process for this one article

5. and most serious of all, no "patients" were involved, making the study "null and void" because they did not use Therapeutic Touch.

There have been studies by real adults showing the efficacy of TT in wound healing, immune system function and reduction of pain.

Isn't this "energetic stuff" a great modality?

[Katnip]

To get back to the OP's question:

It's very difficult these days to have the time to spend on each patient to teach nutrition, relaxation techniques, meditation, or guided imagery. They take time to teach properly and it's very difficult. There are wellness centers that hire nurses though.

And before anyone attacks any of these, take a look at Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, and University of Mass, before you call it bunk. Those and other schools have put a lot of research into the effectiveness of integrative healthcare techniques.

I personally have never heard the term "holistic health" attached to witchcraft.

[DRTCBear]

Zenman,

Yep.

But despite all this there are still people out there who feel qualified to do research on TT without ever having conducted a full literature review. They read reviews of reviews of literature, ignore anything that calls into question their biases, suggest research designs that are guaranteed to prove their null hypotheses instead of research designs that give a fair chance to their alternative hypotheses, and apparently cannot grasp why the probability of a TT practitioner passing the Rosa Test was less than 0.10 (0.30) for skills levels of 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4 correct.

Do a web search on "emily rosa", TT, and "skeptic" and you will get hundreds of websites run by people who are either too dumb to remove their accolades, or too lacking in integrity to admit the truth as you have described it. In hundreds of exchanges with skeptics on another LS the pattern was fairly uniform. First they come on spouting nonsense. Then when questioned they suggest that you don't know what you are talking about. Then they move into the phase where they start wondering if maybe there is something to the suggestion that they open an intro to statistics book and look up how to calculate binomial probabilities, to which they have previously responded that it is unnecessary because they 'know' that TT is bunk. Then, after months they finally agree to work it out themselves and with only two exceptions, you never heard from them again - not even an apology for their arrogance and errors of the past. Larry Sarner (another of the flub four authors) actually threatened to sue me if I continued to expose their work for what it was. Real science I guess.

Now, going back to the original question - is there a place for alternative and complementary practices in nursing? Of course there is. It is what nursing has always been about. The non-alternative and non-complementary aspects of nursing can be done by robots and semi-skilled workers - the bringing of one's whole self to the encounter in behalf of a patient: The tenderness, empathy, healing presence, ability to put oneself in the shoes of the other and care for them is the non-rational but traditional core of nursing. TT practices as do many other alternative and complementary practices bring a sense of wholeness and healing to nursing encounters that could, in some people's opinions, in efforts to constrain costs, be eliminated from 'nursing' practice. We could, of course, hook patients up to telemetry, sedate them, and warehouse them in cubicles like items in a Walmart supply depot, to be picked up and delivered to stationary nurses for the few procedures that couldn't more efficiently be provided by robots - and we may yet get there, but I don't think of that as 'nursing' care.

Alternative and complementary care practices are add-ons for nurses - not substitutes for core nursing skills, yet skeptics tend to fantasize that they are routinely used instead of core nursing skills. I have certainly seen the difference between the two different modalities of practice - but skeptics see something very different than I see even when viewing the same situation.

bear