Holistic Approach

Running head: HOLISTIC APPROACH 1
Holistic Approach
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HOLISTIC CARE 2
Holistic care
Holistic care is a concept of healthcare that puts into consideration the physical,
emotional, social, and economic as well as the spiritual needs of the patient. Furthermore, it
involves looking at how an individual responds to infection and how the disease affects his/her
ability to meet self-care needs. Since individuals suffering from both intellectual and
developmental disabilities go through clinical comorbidities that needs an array of intervention,
there is the need of coordinated and integrated care to improve health outcomes (Brunger &
Wall, 2016). The aim of holistic care therefore is to provide multidisciplinary, coordinated and
whole person care for people suffering from the above mentioned conditions. Basically, there are
different principles of holistic care and include optimal health, healing power of love, whole
person and prevention and treatment. Holistic care optimizes well-being and outcome of patient
care, healthcare professionals should therefore incorporate holistic approach while providing
care to patients.
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization (NACCHO) was
set up in 1974 in a meeting at Albury. Currently, there are 143 ACCHSs distributed across
Australia both in rural and urban centers (Kress et al., 2015). Since the Aboriginals have unique
healthcare needs, the rationale of these NCCHSs is to advocate and provide holistic,
comprehensive and culturally appropriate health services to the Aboriginal and Torres Islanders
people of Australia.
The Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern (AMS) is an urban Aboriginal Community
Health Organization that focus on holistic Aboriginal care. In fact, this the oldest NACCHO in
Australia. Since type 2 diabetes is highly prevalent in the Aboriginals, the AMS has been on the
fore front to provide holistic care to the Aboriginals so as to lower these rates. In close