A study of flotation-REST (restricted environmental stimulation therapy) as an insomnia treatment.

Objectives: Flotation-REST is a treatment for deep relaxation, where a person is contained in a stimuli-restricted environment and floats in water with high salt content. The aim was to investigate the effects from flotation-REST on people with insomnia diagnosis, as previous studies of flotation-REST have demonstrated some effects on sleep but have limitations regarding sample selections and sleep measures.

Material And Methods: Six participants were recruited through an outpatient psychiatry clinic and posters on a university campus.

Narrativity and medicine: some critical reflections.

During the last three decades there has been a wave of interest in narrative and narrativity in the humanistic and the social sciences. This "narrative turn" has spilled over to medicine, where narrative medicine has gained a considerable influence.However, there have also appeared second thoughts on the role of narratives in our lives, as well as on what narratives may mean in relation to clinical medicine.

Epistemological challenges in contemporary Western healthcare systems exemplified by people's widespread use of complementary and alternative medicine.

Modern Western public healthcare systems offer predominantly publicly subsidized healthcare traditionally based on biomedicine as the most important basis to cure persons who suffer from disorders of somatic or psychiatric nature. To which extent this epistemological position is suitable for this purpose is under scientific debate and challenged by some people's personal understandings of health and illness, their individual illness experiences and their decision-making. Current studies show decreasing levels of patient trust in Western public healthcare and a widespread patient-initiated use of complementary and alternative medicine which is often linked to unmet patient-defined healthcare needs.

Advance Care Planning in Norwegian nursing homes-Who is it for?

Advance care planning (ACP) is an international concept for improving patient autonomy and communication in the context of anticipated deterioration and end-of-life care. In a preparatory conversation, health care professionals facilitate one or more conversations where nursing home residents are invited to reflect on, and articulate wishes and preferences concerning future medical treatment and end-of-life care. Our aim with this study was to increase knowledge of existing ACP practices in Norwegian nursing homes.

Fragments of illness: The Death of a Beekeeper as a literary case study of cancer.

The first decisive steps of medicine towards becoming a science in its present shape happen to coincide with "the rise of the novel" in the eighteenth century. Before this well known and in our days still growing scientific specialization of medicine, the connections between literature and medicine were both many and close. By reading and analyzing a contemporary novel, The Death of a Beekeeper by the Swedish author Lars Gustafsson (1978), this article is an attempt to explore to which extent a fictional narrative about a unique case of cancer may illuminate challenges associated with the experience of serious illness.

Illness as unhomelike being-in-the-world? Phenomenology and medical practice.

Scientific medicine has been successful by ways of an ever more detailed understanding and mastering of bodily functions and dysfunctions. Biomedical research promises new triumphs, but discontent with medical practice is all around. Since several decades this has been acknowledged and discussed.

Medical humanities - arts and humanistic science.

The nature and scope of medical humanities are under debate. Some regard this field as consisting of those parts of the humanistic sciences that enhance our understanding of clinical practice and of medicine as historical phenomenon. In this article it is argued that aesthetic experience is as crucial to this project as are humanistic studies.

The Humanistic Medicine program at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1998, the Humanistic Medicine program was established at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. A fundamental element of the program is to promote medical humanities within clinical practice. The program's design focuses on three interconnected areas of study, the history of medicine, philosophy of medical science and practice, and aspects of the clinical encounter.

The doctor and the literary text--potentials and pitfalls.

Expectations are growing that literature may contribute to clinical skills. Narrative medicine is a quickly expanding area of research. However, many people remain sceptical to the idea of literature having a capacity to "save the life of medicine".