Play in Healthcare for Adults

Play in Healthcare for Adults
Author: Alison Tonkin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2016-06-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1317395395

PLAY. We all do it: wordplay, love play, role-play; we play cards, play sport, play the fool, and play around. And that’s just the grown-ups! It features in every aspect of our lives, whether we call it by that or another name. We all do it, but why do we do it? What does it mean to play and what, if any, difference does it make to our lives? Most crucially, and central to the theme of this book, is the question, ‘Does play have a positive impact on our health and wellbeing, and consequently a role in modern healthcare delivery?’ The contributors to this book provide a comprehensive overview of how play and play-based activities can be used throughout the adult lifespan to promote health and wellbeing within the context of healthcare service delivery for patients, their families and communities, and for the staff involved in their care. Responding to current global health concerns such as obesity, coronary heart disease, dementia and mental health, the book argues that play and playfulness offer a means of protection, promotion and recovery of positive health and wellbeing. The human tendency for play and playfulness as essential to personal growth and development lie at the heart of the discussion. This book will be of interest to all those working in health or social care settings, including nursing, social work and allied health students and professionals and those working within the therapeutic disciplines of art therapy, music therapy, and recreation alliances.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309452961

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Play for Health Across the Lifespan

Play for Health Across the Lifespan
Author: Julia Whitaker
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2021-05-17
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1000389537

Play for Health Across the Lifespan uses case studies to explore the impact of play and creativity on health and wellbeing throughout the lifecycle. While play at the start of life influences future development, the authors show play also has a role in improving prospects for health and wellbeing in adulthood and later life. A relational approach to health and wellbeing emphasizes the dynamic, mutually influential relationship between individual development and the changing contexts of our lives. Our personal play history is one feature of this dynamic process, and this book explores how the experience of play throughout the life course sculpts and resculpts the shape of our lives: our physical health, our mental wellbeing, and our relationship to the people and the world around us. Storytelling has been used since the beginning of time to communicate important life lessons in an engaging way. Taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’, the book uses a case-story approach to differentiate the stages of development and to present evidence for how play and playful experiences impact on health and wellbeing from birth to the end of life in the context of temporal and situational change. Each chapter in Play for Health Across the Lifespan introduces relevant evidence-based research on play and health, before presenting several narrative ‘case stories’, which illustrate the application of play theory and the neuroscience of play as they relate to each life stage. With contributions from specialists in health and education, community organizations and the creative and performing arts, this book will appeal to academics, students, and practitioners who are interested in exploring the role of play in addressing contemporary challenges to our physical, mental, and social health.

Social Support and Physical Health

Social Support and Physical Health
Author: Bert N. Uchino
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0300127987

This book will change the way we understand the future of our planet. It is both alarming and hopeful. James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth's environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world. The author explains why current approaches to critical global environmental problems - climate change, biodiversity loss, deterioration of marine environments, deforestation, water shortages, and others - don't work. He offers intriguing insights into why we have been able to address domestic environmental threats with some success while largely failing at the international level. Setting forth eight specific steps to a sustainable future, Speth convincingly argues that dramatically different government and citizen action are now urgent. If ever a book could be described as essential, this is it.

Playing With Movement

Playing With Movement
Author: Todd Hargrove
Publisher:
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2019-04-25
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9780578502618

If you want better physical performance and health, and are frustrated with simplistic recipes or blueprints for guaranteed success, this book is for you. Playing with Movement is about helping you solve "movement problems," such as completing your first marathon, recovering from back pain, putting on more muscle, or improving your agility on the soccer field. These challenges can't be met with simple recipes because they are are all complex, meaning they depend on interactions between many different individual factors - muscular, skeletal, physiological, psychological - and also social and environmental context. Play is a natural and intuitive behavior that helps animals explore different ways to solve complex problems. If you want to get better at a sport, find a sustainable exercise program, or even get out of pain, you will need to play with movement. Play means getting physically active in a way that is fun, curious, variable, and personally meaningful. All animals develop skill and fitness through play, not "working out." But the mainstream approach to training and therapy is all work no play. It is focused on movements that are boring, repetitive, planned, stressful and done only to accomplish some external goal. This stems from a reductive mindset that views the body as a machine that needs to be "fixed," instead of a self-organizing system that can grow, adapt and learn. This causes a wide range of common problems, including: Pain treatments that expensive, medicalized and ineffective. An obsession with correcting "dysfunctions" in posture and movement patterns that are in fact normal variations. Sport training that relies on repetitive drills, as opposed to varied games. Exercise programs that feel meaningless and dispiriting. For example, "going through the motions" alone on machines in the gym, versus interacting with friends outside while developing functional skills. The arguments in this book are not based in romantic feel-good reasoning, or nostalgia for sunny days at the park when we were children. They rely on a substantial body of evidence and theory pulled from diverse fields of study, including the sciences of play, complex systems, pain, motor control, exercise physiology, and psychology. They show that the best pathway to movement health is found not by tracking huge amounts of data or following a set of complicated algorithms, but by going on an adventure. If you want to take control of your movement health in a way that is fun, meaningful, and empowering, this book is for you.

Play and Playfulness for Public Health and Wellbeing

Play and Playfulness for Public Health and Wellbeing
Author: Alison Tonkin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Medical policy
ISBN: 9781138541665

There is an increased emphasis on promoting wellbeing, active engagement and preventive measures in healthcare, rather than treating sickness alone. This innovative book follows this trend by making a case for the role of play and playfulness in public health. Drawing on a broad range of research evidence and practice experience, this book looks at the impact of play on brain development, the early years, end-of-life experiences, building good relationships, family life, the healthy workplace, interactions with digital worlds and our surroundings. Discussing the art and science of public health, it explores creative approaches for drawing society's more vulnerable members in as well as for introducing playfulness into the mainstream. Outlining the benefits that play and playfulness can confer on health and wellbeing, this book is an important resource for students, academics and practitioners interested in play, creative approaches to health and wellbeing, and public health.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2013-04-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309264146

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Your Body in Balance

Your Body in Balance
Author: Neal D Barnard, MD
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1538747448

This nationally bestselling book explains the shocking new science of how hormones are wreaking havoc on the body, and the delicious solution that improves health, reduces pain, and even helps to shed weight. Hidden in everyday foods are the causes of a surprising range of health problems: infertility, menstrual cramps, weight gain, hair loss, breast and prostate cancer, hot flashes, and much more. All of these conditions have one thing in common: they are fueled by hormones that are hiding in foods or are influenced by the foods we eat. Your Body in Balance provides step-by-step guidance for understanding what's at the root of your suffering-and what you can do to feel better fast. Few people realize that a simple food prescription can help you tackle all these and more by gently restoring your hormone balance, with benefits rivaling medications. Neal Barnard, MD, a leading authority on nutrition and health, offers insight into how dietary changes can alleviate years of stress, pain, and illness. What's more, he also provides delicious and easy-to-make hormone-balancing recipes, including: Cauliflower Buffalo Chowder Kung Pao Lettuce Wraps Butternut Breakfast Tacos Mediterranean Croquettes Apple Pie Nachos Brownie Batter Hummus Your Body in Balance gives new hope for people struggling with health issues. Thousands of people have already reclaimed their lives and their health through the strategic dietary changes described in this book. Whether you're looking to treat a specific ailment or are in search of better overall health, Dr. Neal Barnard provides an easy pathway toward pain relief, weight control, and a lifetime of good health.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020
Author: HHS, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (U.S.)
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2015-12-31
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0160934656

Learn more about how health nutrition experts can help you make the correct food choices for a healthy lifestyle The eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines is designed for professionals to help all individuals, ages 2 years-old and above, and their families to consume a healthy, nutritionally adequate diet. The 2015-2020 edition provides five overarching Guidelines that encourage: healthy eating patterns recognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy pattern acknowledge that all segments of our society have a role to play in supporting healthy choices provides a healthy framework in which individuals can enjoy foods that meet their personal, cultural and traditional preferences within their food budget This guidance can help you choose a healthy diet and focus on preventing the diet-related chronic diseases that continue to impact American populations. It is also intended to help you to improve and maintain overall health for disease prevention. **NOTE: This printed edition contains a minor typographical error within the Appendix. The Errata Sheet describing the errors can be found by clicking here. This same errata sheet can be used for the digital formats of this product available for free. Health professionals, including physicians, nutritionists, dietary counselors, nurses, hospitality meal planners, health policymakers, and beneficiaries of the USDA National School Lunch and School Breakfast program and their administrators may find these guidelines most useful. American consumers can also use this information to help make helathy food choices for themselves and their families.

Stress Management for Life: A Research-Based Experiential Approach

Stress Management for Life: A Research-Based Experiential Approach
Author: Michael Olpin
Publisher: Cengage Learning
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781305120594

Clearly explaining the how to of stress management and prevention, STRESS MANAGEMENT FOR LIFE, 4th Edition emphasizes experiential learning and encourages students to personalize text information through practical applications and a tool box of stress-reducing resources, including activities and online stress-relief audio files. Michael Olpin and Margie Hesson offer more than just a book about stress; they offer students a life-changing experience. Well-researched and engaging, the Fourth Edition empowers students to experience personal wellness by understanding and managing stress, gives stress-related topics a real-life context, and motivates students to manage stress in a way that accommodates their lifestyle, values, and goals. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.