More people are looking for ways to be and remain healthy in the long term, hence a growing interest in holistic treatment methods within the healthcare industry. This is mainly for conditions such as cancers and others that require long-term care. Most practitioners admit that when patients are in a good place emotionally, it enhances patients’ treatments. This leads to the popularity of holistic treatments and the increasing demand for holistic medical professionals. This is especially true in the nursing field, as nurses interact more with patients.
What is Holistic Nursing?
Holistic nursing involves using nursing knowledge and practices together with psychological, biological, social, and interpersonal skills to treat the whole patient. That means healing their body, mind, and soul. This is unlike traditional nursing, which only focuses on treating the medical condition. To some extent, all nurses might be seen as holistic due to the nature of the profession. However, there are notable differences between traditional and holistic nursing.
What are the differences between Traditional and Holistic Nursing?
Both holistic and traditional nursing requires to be licensed by the nursing board. However, holistic nursing requires additional training. This training focuses on the techniques that promote mental, spiritual, and psychological health. Holistic nursing training promotes wellness through different means other than medicine and nutrition. They also promote a stress-free and calming atmosphere to work through emotional issues setbacks and find inner peace. In addition, a holistic nursing certification is required to practice.
Traditional nursing is often limited in the methods used to treat a patient. In most instances, policies and procedures are put in place to guide traditional nurses. Therefore, besides medication, comfort, and kindness, there is little else that a traditional nurse can do to treat patients. However, a holistic nurse uses creativity in treating patients. They are free to use methods that include music therapy, guided imagery, anxiety reduction therapies, art and animal-assisted therapy, and other techniques to treat their patients. Holistic nurses can specialize in one of the modalities or use several in their treatments. The most common modalities include body-based practices such as massage therapy, yoga, biologically based practices such as herbal therapy, and energy medicine including magnetic therapy.
Besides the methods and ideologies, another significant distinction between holistic and traditional nurses is their patients. Traditional nurses can treat patients from all walks of life and different medical conditions. They treat infants to the elderly and everything from the common cold to cancer. However, holistic nurses often treat patients with severe medical conditions. These conditions include terminal illnesses, severe burns, cancers, and patients who need long-term care. Holistic nurses treat these patients for long enough to understand them as a person and not just their medical condition.
Is Holistic Nursing Certification Important?
Due to the difference in patients treated, there’s also a difference in where you can find the nurses. Traditional nurses will be in every healthcare facility as they can get a job in any healthcare organization. Holistic nurses can also work at hospitals, but with the required holistic nursing certification, they are often found at more specialized healthcare facilities. These centers cater to a particular type of patient.
