Heritage Assessment In Health Care

Heritage Assessment
Heritage assessment is quite crucial as it is used as a tool to acquire information about a community’s cultural background, traditions, spiritual life, lang8uage, health status and social life. Heritage assessment is employed in the healthcare sector for various functions like assessment of a people’s culture, providing awareness with regards to health restoration, protection and maintenance. Heritage assessment is also employed by the nursing fraternity in provision of medical care that is culturally competent. This paper studies different cultural backgrounds with regards to health matters particularly on practices and traditions. The cultures that will be evaluated in the paper include the Nigerian culture, the Indian
where the Indian people used the forest environment for their medical and health care needs. Skilled physicians were renowned during the colonial and pre-colonial periods for their expertise in indigenous medicinal practices and therapies. The traditional belief present in majority of the Indian people is the Ayurvedic Medicine, which is a traditional Indian medicine system that the people belief prevents and cures different diseases (Ananth, 1984). In the Indian culture, the people practice the Ayurvedic Medicine as a form of health protection against various tropical diseases and ailments as it employs a balance of the body’s physical, spiritual and mental well-being. Ayurveda consisting of ‘Ayu’ and ‘veda’ carrying the meaning of ‘life’ and ‘knowledge of’ respectively, represents a healing system. It employs the soul, senses, body and mind as a complete being and that each person consist of kapha, vata and pitta which all make up the three doshas. Doshas are a representation of specific bodily activities and the ratio varies in every person. Whenever, a particular dosha accumulates, Ayurveda suggests particular guidelines of nutrition and lifestyle in order to help the person in reducing the excessive dosha and may even recommend particular herbal supplements that quicken the process of healing (Singh & Lahiri,
Practitioners of TCM use a holistic standpoint to approach the healthcare sector by trying to figure out the underlying disharmonies and imbalances of a particular disease (Chan, Tan & Xin, 2010). Traditional healers use traditional methods of healing such as herbal medicines and body and mind practices like tai chi, acupuncture and massages to heal the patient rather than the disease alone. The Chinese believe that everything consists of two parts that are interdependent and opposite and the body’s health is balanced by the Yin and Yang. Yin symbolized by earth or water represents the feminine, dark or the night while yang symbolized by air or fire represents the bright, masculine, light or the day. The Chinese believe that the body has both qualities of yin and yang in it, with organs such as the stomach considered to be yang while the heart to be yin. In order to restore. Protect and maintain health, the Chinese employ a holistic approach of traditional medicines revolving around nutrition and diet, spirituality and exercise and combines a set of practices that assist the body to heal such as herbal medicine, acupressure, Qigong, Tai Chi and acupuncture (Xue & O'Brien,