Enhancing Holistic Care
Name
Affiliation
Course Unit: Course Name
Instructor
Date
, Enhancing Holistic Care
Nurses have a duty to provide compassionate, competent and exceptional care to their
patients. Such care should focus on person as whole, rather than focusing on their illness alone.
As such, nursing care often employs a holistic approach. Such an approach can be traced back to
Florence Nightingale, who recognized that the environment affects the healing process of patient.
The concept of holistic has expanded significantly, as various aspects of the spiritual,
psychological, social and physical have been recognized as essential to the healing process
(Ambushe et al., 2023). For nurses to be able to provide holistic care they have to understand
how disease affects how the body functions (Pathophysiology), effects and uses of various
medicines (pharmacology), and current condition of the patient, which requires knowledge on
how to conduct physical assessment. The goal of the paper is to define holistic nursing care,
pathophysiology, and pharmacology. The paper will also discuss how physical assessment helps
nurses plan and provide care, and how these three dimensions of knowledge can be integrated in
different clinical scenario.
Holistic Nursing Care
According to the American Nursing Association (ANA), holistic nursing involves as
integration of environmental, energetic, social, cultural, and sexual, spirit, emotion, body and
mind aspects and principles to promote wellbeing, and actualize human potential (Ambushe,
Awoke, Demissie, & Tekalign, 2023). It is a comprehensive care approach that contemplates the
social, physical, mental, economic and spiritual needs of a patient, their response to illness, and
how the patient’s condition affects their ability to meet their self-care needs. In essence, holistic
care be described as a caring process that recognizes and acknowledges an individual as a whole,
and recognizes the interdependencies between psychological, social, biological, and spiritual
Name
Affiliation
Course Unit: Course Name
Instructor
Date
, Enhancing Holistic Care
Nurses have a duty to provide compassionate, competent and exceptional care to their
patients. Such care should focus on person as whole, rather than focusing on their illness alone.
As such, nursing care often employs a holistic approach. Such an approach can be traced back to
Florence Nightingale, who recognized that the environment affects the healing process of patient.
The concept of holistic has expanded significantly, as various aspects of the spiritual,
psychological, social and physical have been recognized as essential to the healing process
(Ambushe et al., 2023). For nurses to be able to provide holistic care they have to understand
how disease affects how the body functions (Pathophysiology), effects and uses of various
medicines (pharmacology), and current condition of the patient, which requires knowledge on
how to conduct physical assessment. The goal of the paper is to define holistic nursing care,
pathophysiology, and pharmacology. The paper will also discuss how physical assessment helps
nurses plan and provide care, and how these three dimensions of knowledge can be integrated in
different clinical scenario.
Holistic Nursing Care
According to the American Nursing Association (ANA), holistic nursing involves as
integration of environmental, energetic, social, cultural, and sexual, spirit, emotion, body and
mind aspects and principles to promote wellbeing, and actualize human potential (Ambushe,
Awoke, Demissie, & Tekalign, 2023). It is a comprehensive care approach that contemplates the
social, physical, mental, economic and spiritual needs of a patient, their response to illness, and
how the patient’s condition affects their ability to meet their self-care needs. In essence, holistic
care be described as a caring process that recognizes and acknowledges an individual as a whole,
and recognizes the interdependencies between psychological, social, biological, and spiritual
