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Heritage Assessment Essay

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Heritage Assessment
Heritage is who we are, where we come from, it’s our history. Traditionally the word heritage means one back ground or tradition. Each individual’s heritage varies between different cultures and consists of determination of one’s ethnic, religious, and cultural background (Spector, 2009). The heritage assessment tool helps healthcare professionals evaluate someone’s physical, mental, and spiritual beliefs which in turn helps with determining traditional health methods such as health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. It also helps in opening a pathway for effective communication between the patient and health care provider to understand ones culture, beliefs, as well as their health …show more content…

Some believe illness comes from Satan and not living according to God’s will. The Chinese culture puts little emphasis on individual feelings and a lot of emphasis on family devotion and loyalty. A like with the Hispanic culture, when making decisions about health care the whole family is usually involved. Religion and traditions are very important in the Chinese culture. They will usually follow in their ancestors footsteps. Health protection deals with how one maintains and protects their health on a daily basis (Spector, 2009). Many cultures have their own rituals and beliefs they adhere to, to help protect their health. Hispanics believe in an imbalance between hot and cold as a sign of illness. In the event there is a disturbance they believe “Pasmo” could happen which is paralysis of the face or limbs due to the disturbance of the imbalance. Hot illnesses such as diarrhea or a rash should be treated with cold remedies, and cold illnesses with hot remedies such as penicillin. Another view is that cold should be avoided after extremely hot experiences. For example after cooking, intense ironing, or drinking hot coffee or tea one should avoid going into cold air avoid getting sick. Hispanics also believe in “Mal de ojo” or the evil eye. The evil eye is excessive amount of adoration. For instance if a child is complimented by an individual for being beautiful they can inflict mal de ojo on the child. This can cause the child to have

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