Ayurvedic Medicine: Ancient Foundations of Health Care
Ayurvedic medicine is a highly sophisticated religion, philosophy, and system of medicine that has been practiced in India for over 2,500 years. As with other forms of complementary and alternative medicine, it focuses on the whole individual and one… Read more »
Characteristics of Spirituality
While theorists and researchers have yet to agree on a single, universally accepted theory or definition of spirituality, few would deny its existence or impact on health and healing. In the past, spirituality was synonymous with religion. Although s… Read more »
Child Abuse, Prevention, and Mandatory Reporting
Child abuse is a national and international issue that has serious long-term consequences for the child and the community. A social problem that has existed for thousands of years, child abuse in all its forms first became a topic of national interes… Read more »
Childbirth And Culture – Practices, Beliefs, And Traditions
An intimate and complex experience, childbirth reflects a woman’s biology as well as the social context in which delivery takes place. The experience of every woman is unique to her and deeply personal because of the culture in which she gives birth… Read more »
Contemporary Ethical Dilemmas in Healthcare
With the advent of astounding scientific and technological advances in every area of health care, today’s healthcare environment is increasingly fraught with complex patient care issues. Healthcare professionals often have varying views on legal and… Read more »
Creating Healing Relationships
A healing relationship involves two major elements—a relationship with the self (intrapersonal relationship) and relationships with others (interpersonal relationships). Each is critical to creating a healing environment for an organization’s staff a… Read more »
Cultural Competence in Health Care
The culturally diverse health care populations in the United States provide health care professionals with tremendous opportunities to bridge cultural gaps, incorporate new treatments and disease prevention strategies into their practices, and learn… Read more »
Cultural Considerations at the End of Life
At the end of life, attitudes about the loss of a loved one profoundly affect how both a dying person and his or her family and friends address the dying and the grieving processes. Diverse populations in the United States provide healthcare professi… Read more »
Curanderismo and Central and South American Healing Practices
With a long and complex history, curanderismo, or indigenous medicine, is the broad healing tradition found in Mexico and Mexican American communities throughout the United States. For many Hispanics, conventional medicine has not been effective or w… Read more »
Effective and Empowering Communication
Communication is how people exchange information, opinions, and ideas and it links all human beings together. Intimate, complex, and necessary for our very survival, communication can profoundly affect our overall health and wellness. Today, communic… Read more »
Energy Medicine Therapies: Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Reiki, Reflexology, and Craniosacral Therapy
The concept that energy systems are part of the human interactive environment and a powerful part of therapeutic healing techniques has been part of many cultures for centuries. Energy medicine therapies use gentle techniques thought to help balance… Read more »
Ethical Foundations in Healthcare
Healthcare professionals face ethical dilemmas every day of their professional lives. Ethical decision-making is an important part of the care they provide to their patients and clients. A sound understanding of key ethical issues helps healthcare pr… Read more »
Global Healing Systems – An Introduction
Global healing traditions date back thousands of years and have a long and rich history. They reflect the specific and unique characteristics of the culture, history, philosophy, and availability of resources in different parts of the world. Global h… Read more »
Health and the Human Spirit
Spirituality plays an important role in health and healing. This course will explore the forms and expressions of spirituality; discuss culture and its relationship to spirituality; examine the relationship between spirituality and aging; explain spi… Read more »
HIPAA and Patient Privacy
Personal health information is protected under federal law. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides for the protection and security of personal health information. Both healthcare professionals and consumers must unde… Read more »
Holistic and Integrative Health: An Introduction
The past several decades have brought tremendous growth in the numbers of health care facilities and providers offering integrative health care training and services. Consumers in the United States use these complementary and alternative medicine (CA… Read more »
Hunger and Malnutrition
Almost 800 million people in the world are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Most of these individuals live in developing countries. However, there are millions more in developed countries who go to bed each night hungry. Children are the most… Read more »
Integrative Therapies for Cancer Pain Management
Many advances have been made in the treatment of cancer during the last several decades and yet effective cancer pain management remains an overwhelming issue for more than 80% of patients. Today, there are numerous options for cancer pain management… Read more »
International Women’s Health – Challenges and Opportunities
While women have a longer life expectancy than men in most every country, they don’t necessarily get to enjoy healthier lives. Millions of women suffer from health issues each year throughout the world—health issues that would not affect them if they… Read more »
Iowa Child Abuse, Prevention, and Mandatory Reporting
Child abuse is a national and international issue that has serious long-term consequences for the child and the community. A social problem that has existed for thousands of years, child abuse in all its forms first became a topic of national interes… Read more »
Legal Issues in Healthcare
Healthcare professionals today are acutely aware of the need to understand the legal environment in which they practice. Ever-shrinking resources, shorter lengths of stay, high-acuity patients, availability of more complex information, diverse patien… Read more »
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Health Issues
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning individuals—often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBTQ—are becoming more visible and acknowledged in societies both in the United States and throughout the world. Yet, because of the discri… Read more »
Meditation for Health and Energy
Meditation is a mind-body practice with many methods and variations that are all grounded in the silence and stillness of present-moment awareness. The regular practice of meditation not only calms and helps focus the mind, it is also an effective pr… Read more »
Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is eating with intention and attention. It is much more than simply eating slowly, without distraction. Mindful eating encompasses the entire process of eating and is a healthy and pleasurable activity for satisfying hunger. When we ea… Read more »
Mindful Movement: Walking, Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong
Mindful movement, such as walking, yoga, tai chi, and qigong can be accomplished almost anywhere, nearly everyone can do it, and minimal equipment is needed to participate. Mindful movement is an effective way to reduce stress but there are many othe… Read more »
Mindful Relationships
Mindful relationships involve being present and paying attention to our relationships with ourselves and within ourselves. Mindfulness, a growing and expanding field, is the ability to focus without judgment and the ability to be present in the momen… Read more »
Mindfulness and Happiness
New research is demonstrating that mindfulness might be the key to happiness and health. Everyone wants to be happy and healthy. Mindful happiness is not found in external things but within ourselves. By focusing on becoming happier, we will not only… Read more »
Mindfulness Meditation
Widely accepted, used, and studied within mainstream medicine, mindfulness meditation involves paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment. The health benefits of mindfulness meditation include improvements in dealing wit… Read more »
Music and the Brain
Most of what we know about music and the brain has been discovered in the last 20 years. Music is universal across all cultures and, like other arts, is a function of specific social and cultural influences. Listening to or playing music can provide… Read more »
Music Therapy and Alzheimer’s Disease
Music therapy influences an individual’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and social well-being and is especially exciting as a modality that can improve the quality of life for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The type of therapy used in in… Read more »
Music Therapy for End of Life Care
Music therapy for end-of-life care involves playing music on a variety of instruments, singing, listening to music, and performing music based on the patient’s preferences. The goal is to enhance the person’s quality of life by relieving or easing a… Read more »
Music Therapy: Inspiring Health and Wellness
Music therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. At a time when people are increasingly turning to holistic methods… Read more »
Native North American Healing
Millions of Native North Americans (indigenous peoples) utilize traditional healing traditions as a way of maintaining balance and wholeness. To the traditional Native American, all aspects of life are intimately connected to good health and well-bei… Read more »
Oral Health: Beautiful Smiles for Life
Oral health can affect virtually every other aspect of our health. Good oral health can not only prevent disease in the mouth but it can also prevent many chronic diseases. Good oral health is more than “pretty teeth” and affects our ability to speak… Read more »
Organ and Tissue Donation and Recovery
The gift of organ donation is the gift of life. However, the gap between those who need an organ or tissue donation and the number of donations available is wide and growing. Healthcare providers need to understand the issues surrounding organ and ti… Read more »
Pain Interventions and Treatments
Effective pain management begins with effective pain assessment. Only after an assessment is completed can the healthcare provider determine how to best manage a client’s pain. Barriers to pain management that can lead to the undertreatment of pain n… Read more »
Pain Management in Special Populations – Children and the Elderly
Helping pediatric and geriatric populations manage their pain requires special consideration regarding the types of medications and strategies chosen, the route through which medications are delivered, and specific comorbidities or metabolic issues t… Read more »
Pain Management in Special Populations – Surgery, Cancer, and HIV
Health care professionals often face difficult challenges when working with clients who have undergone surgery or who have cancer or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). These clients encounter unique problems with their health conditions, especially… Read more »
Pain Management in the Adult – Acute and Chronic Pain
Acute and chronic pain in the adult client have different causes, methods of diagnoses, and interventions. Effective health care providers understand these differences when they assess and manage their clients’ pain.
Pain Theory and Assessment Principles
Pain is a universal phenomenon. Pain is the fifth vital sign and its assessment is crucial in the comprehensive care of every patient. Pain is a subjective concept and is whatever the client says it is. Pain is experienced across all age groups, acro… Read more »
Pain Treatment at the End of Life
Regardless of the cause, pain is a common symptom in clients who are near death. Healthcare providers must understand the tremendous implications of pain and pain symptoms and prioritize the assessment and optimal treatment of pain in clients near th… Read more »
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
When individuals experience a traumatic, terrifying, life-changing event or series of events, with a real or threatened risk of death, they may experience a variety of symptoms known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although this condition h… Read more »
Psychology of Stress
Events, people, and circumstances fill our normal daily lives–along with a certain amount of stress. Some of us experience psychological effects from this stress, while others seem to be unaffected or even thrive when challenged. Why do we react diff… Read more »
Sacred Spaces, Healing Places
Modern nursing was founded on the concepts of healing environments. Florence Nightingale was one of the first to realize the importance of nature, light, noise, and sensory stimulation in healing. Today, it is well known that healing environments emp… Read more »
Self-Care for Health and Well-Being
Caring for yourself is one of the most important things you can do for yourself, and it is also one of the easiest things to forget to do or put aside in favor of tending to others. Good self-care involves small self-care habits that, when done regul… Read more »
Sexual Assault, Gender Violence, and Rape
Rape or sexual assault can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. These forms of sexual violence are among the most underreported crimes in both the United States and the world due to the inten… Read more »
Social Media and Healthcare
Social media has many characteristics and has become part of the very fabric of today’s society. It can be immediate, irreverent, and incredibly powerful. The use of social media in all areas of life, especially health care, is growing exponentially…. Read more »
Sound Healing: Vibrational Therapy
Sound healing is the process by which participants play or listen to live or recorded sounds in order to have a positive healing experience. Those experiencing sound healing may feel healing on a physical, emotional, energetic, and/or spiritual level… Read more »
South African Healing Traditions
Traditional healing has existed in South Africa for thousands of years and is utilized by the majority of individuals who live in the region. Drawing from a primarily oral tradition, traditional African healers come from many cultures, speak many div… Read more »
Spiritual Assessment and Spiritual Care
Spiritual care is an important and necessary part of appropriate patient care, yet many health care professionals feel ill equipped to provide it to their clients. When people experience a spiritual crisis and need spiritual care, they may choose to… Read more »