6.6 A few final thoughts This final section has concentrated on the heart, the lungs and the blood – the body's cardio-respiratory system. We saw briefly how the body takes oxygen in through the lungs, and discussed the importance of this for athletes in various sports. To understand the role of oxygen in the body and its importance to athletes, we had to draw on information that we had discussed in earlier sections about the way oxygen is carried in the blood and the way that the heart pumps blood to different par
6.2 The body, the lungs and oxygen The figure shows a simple image of how the lungs absorb oxygen from the air. 6.1 Introduction We have learnt that part of the reason the heart pumps blood around is to make sure that the body gets a fresh supply of oxygen. So in the same way that our hearts need to keep beating, we need to keep breathing oxygen into our lungs to survive. But what is the function of oxygen? Why does our body need oxygen, and what does it do with it once we have breathed it in? These are some of the questions that we will examine in first part of this section. In the second part of this section, w 5.3 Blood vessels: veins, arteries and capillaries The tubes that carry blood around the body can be loosely divided into two types, arteries and veins. Arteries are the tubes that take blood away from the heart. They tend to be quite large, at least a few millimetres in diameter. Veins are the tubes that carry the blood back to the heart and these are usually narrower than the arteries. 5.1 Introduction Elite athletes are aware of the importance of heart performance and blood flow and many have specific training programmes to increase the strength and efficiency of the heart. This is not, however, just something that impacts on elite athletes. Even those of us engaged in sport at an amateur level or just for recreation will have experienced the effect of sport on the heart. After intense physical activity our heart pounds and possibly our head pounds too from the blood that is being pumped t 2.2.3 Elizabeth Belk Elizabeth Belk was living in Hamilton, South 8 Comment on the audio clips In the cases of John and Danny, few, if any, of needs were being satisfied. Both were unemployed and, despite some assistance from Social Security, neither was economically secure. Neither of them had protective housing. Both were reliant on public toilets for clean water and, by and large, on charity to obtain nutritious food. Neither had ready access to appropriate health care, and both relied on the Accident and Emergency department at the hospital for medical treatment. John certainly did 1 The Swansea Cyrenians In this course, you will hear from four people who have been helped by a secular voluntary organisation offering support and assistance to the homeless. The Swansea Cyrenians is one of several organisations that are in touch with homeless people in Swansea. Since 1973, it has been helping some of the most vulnerable people in society, including those who have suffered from homelessness. At the time of the recordings, in 1999, the organisation was running a number of schemes to he 4.2 People knowledge Stacey (1994) has made a passionate plea to understand the ‘power of lay knowledge’ which she prefers to call ‘people knowledge’. Stacey claims that two fundamental assumptions underline the importance of listening to lay voices. One is that all people are of equal worth and so their views should be heard. The other is that people are health producers as much as they are health consumers. She maintains that patients do a great deal of hard work, whether it is direct as with labouring 3.4 Health and children So far, all the studies we have discussed have been based on adults. Health viewed through children's eyes is receiving attention, mainly in order to be able to target health promotion messages. Bendelow and Pridmore (1998) interviewed 100 nine and 10-year-olds in three primary schools in urban and rural areas of south-west England. As well as having discussions with the children, they asked the children to draw pictures to convey their views. Their results are quoted in Box 2. 3.1 Health and low income Health is a very personal matter, but people's health is very much situated in their life experiences and so their perceptions of health are likely to reflect their social situation. Bostock (1998), a health researcher, interviewed mothers who were managing on low incomes to find out about their perceptions of their health. She was struck by the difference between her respondents' self-assessed health status compared to that found by the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) which relat 3.1 Frequency Frequency refers to how often or how frequently someone should exercise. To improve aerobic fitness, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends an exercise frequency of three days per week of vigorous exercise or five days of moderate exercise for healthy adults (Garber et al., 2011). The terms ‘vigorous’ and ‘moderate’ will be defined in the next section. A frequency of 3–5 days per week using a combination of moderate and vigorous exercise is also recommended. 2 Principles of training When designing training sessions or programmes, it is important to consider the principles of training which include the principles of overload, progression, specificity, individual response and reversibility. These principles apply to all components of fitness, not just aerobic fitness, In order to increase our fitness, we need to ‘overload’ our body systems. For examp Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: apply the principles of training to aerobic fitness development consider the appropriate frequency, intensity, time/duration and type of exercise to develop aerobic fitness. 3.3.1 A conflict of interest One of the difficulties of the involvement of drug companies in the mental health field is that it produces a conflict of interest. To put it crudely, drug companies rely on a continuing supply of patients to keep them in business. This is not always congruent with people's best interests, as you will see below. Although mental health services are intended to help people experiencing mental distress, they also have other driving forces. The market economy model of provision has encouraged the 1.1 Introduction This extract looks at what we are calling ‘boundaries of explanation’. It tackles key issues such as: What are mental health and distress – and who decides? What are the views of people who have acquired a label of ‘mental illness’? What are the views of those who determine – and patrol – the boundary between mental distress and ‘normality’? The extract looks at language and terminology an 3.20 Key ethical issues for CAM practitioners: an effective complaints mechanism Effective relationships require strong communication skills. A good therapeutic relationship allows users the space and security to air their dissatisfaction without recourse to an external body. However, not all users enjoy such open relationships with their practitioners and may prefer to end the relationship than voice a complaint. This is why it is crucial for professional bodies to have accessible and user-centred complaints mechanisms in place. Complaints panels must include a significa 3.19 Key ethical issues for CAM practitioners: professional etiquette and whistleblowing In the past, professional bodies cautioned their members against disparaging other members of the same profession in front of a user. In the UK many codes of ethics still discuss professional etiquette from the perspective of safeguarding the interests of the practitioner rather than the user. Sensitivity is required when treating a user who is dissatisfied with a previous practitioner, but this should not prevent a practitioner being critical of someone else's obviously unacceptable treatmen 3.11 Key ethical issues for CAM practitioners Although CAM practitioners’ duties may vary in nature from other health professionals’ duties, the types of ethical concern remain broadly similar. The rest of this extract considers the key ethical areas underpinning standards of best practice in CAM. Although CAM practice varies dramatically in scope, all the issues listed in Author(s): 3.4.3 Respecting autonomy is the foremost ethical principle in health care Some commentators believe the pendulum has swung so far in favour of respecting autonomy that it leaves little scope for users to be passive recipients of healing. The desire to make each user an active participant in their own healing process can make it hard, or even impossible, for a user to refuse to engage in active decision making, and leave the decision to the benevolent practitioner. In this case, the user may waive his or her rights, by choosing not to be kept informed about changes
Overload
