Moving Towards Integrated Models of Aged Care Across Boundaries in Asia

The demand for aged care has been increasing continuously. Integrated care covers comprehensive areas of medical and health services and is essential in improving the fragmented primary services, aiming to achieve high quality of care to the older adults and their families. Holistic care philosophy, acknowledging the existence of a very close relationship between body, mind and soul (spirit) and focusing on individualism, emphasises that every dimension of human is distinctive and unique as well as being connected to each other. Medicine in particular appears to have become distracted from its duty to care, comfort and console, while focusing preferentially on its duty to ameliorate, attenuate and cure. Such a ‘de-coupling’ of medicine in its humanistic character from the scientific knowledge is exerting negative effects on the patient’s experience of illness. While conventional Western medicine has established its solid foundation based on state-of-the-art technology, objective clinical evidence, well-defined therapeutic mechanisms, standardisation of treatment and rigorous research methodology, it is limited by the lack of holistic and humanistic approach, individualised treatment and awareness of the inter-relationship between the environment, psychosocial factors and the physical illness. In contrast, the time-honoured complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has founded a distinct system to strive for the balance and harmony between the environment, spiritual, mental and physical well-being with a holistic approach, that emphasises patient-practitioner therapeutic relationship and tailor-made management. It is generally perceived as a more natural treatment modality and the use of CAM has been increasingly accepted in developed countries. To reconcile the two completely different systems of medical practice, the concept of ‘Integrative Medicine’ has emerged in recent years. Integrative Medicine combines conventional Western medicine and CAM in the disease management. It aims to synergise the strengths and compensate the shortcomings of conventional Western medicine and CAM so as to provide the best patient care: delivery of medical care based on robust evidence and theoretical basis through a holistic, individualised approach of healing the mind, body and spirit.