Stroke Example

Stroke Example Stroke â€" Essay Example > Critical Review of Traditional Herbal Medicine as Pharmacological Stroke Treatment to Address Evidence-based Medical PracticeTreating stroke is an age-old clinical and pharmacological predicament in the health care and medical profession, coupled with the dearth of ground-breaking and evident-based medicine treatment and approach that resulted in people’s continued search for answers. However, embracing which one to choose as a more viable pharmacological solution in treating stroke has varying degree of contradictory views, particularly in using either both conventional or alternative or complementary medicine. Interest in traditional medicine surged in recent years, backed by an even more accelerating number of observational and anecdotal experience being accumulated over the last 1,000 years. Traditional medicine is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercise … to treat diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being. ” Traditional forms of medicine make use of herbs and acupuncture (holistic treatment approach) when it gets clues of an internal imbalance to achieve body harmony, which is unlike the Western medicine, which focuses only on the disease. In researches chosen for this report, one of the studies evidenced how herbal or traditional medicines helped improve microcirculation in the brain of a patient; it also helps protect against ischemic reperfusion injury, possess neuroprotective properties and inhibit apoptosis, thus justifying their use in stroke patients. Similar yet at times contradictory findings would be revealed in the studies explored, but might be the information needed to resolve and address issues that demand attention. Prospect for Evidence-based medicine treatment, where derive. To understand the concept of evidence-based medicine, it is said it is be st to postpone any attempt to define it until we inspect and look into the theories in making clinical judgment and decision-making. In an article published by the Journal of Emergency Primary Health Care (JEPHC) about its survey of theories related to judgment and decision-making, its author Ramon Shaban tried to construct a well-thought out definition of the terms judgment and decision-making in the context of medical practice, but to no avail, citing a universally-accepted definition of judgment or decision-making in this context has not been arrived at. One of the criticisms often hurled against clinical judgment and decision-making is the propensity of some practitioners to rely not on scientifically or statistically-based information but on trial and error and unpredictability; and medicine which should harbor on exactness were kept on bay as medical practitioners rely on their intuition. Until two decades ago, a new movement, now known as evidence-based emerged, more in res ponse to the floundering of our society’s overburdened medical health and care system, according to “A Study a Day keeps the Doctor Away, ” an article written by Leyla Kokmen in the politically-charged Utne Reader magazine (Sept-Oct 2007). As evidence-based movement work aim for a just and responsible practice of the medical profession, specially of pharmacological treatment of disease like stroke, we attempted to look into the issues used in the various theories to make a sound and logical clinical judgment and decision-making. With evidence-based medical movement, regard to patients who are asked more and more to get more responsibility in paying for their solicited health services are put in premium. As should be the case, patients must be informed if they are presented with health care choices that were employed with little or no scientific evidence, so they can opt for more invasive and expensive treatments because more often than not, these remedy do more harm than goo d.