Health

media type="youtube" key="l3-la0C19Z4" height="315" width="420"Third-world living conditions are typical of most reservation communities. Poor health care, miserable poverty and substandard education are a daily fact of life for most American Indians. The top 5 causes of death among native people are alcohol related. Native Americans also have a higher infant mortality rate. Although the federal government spends over $3 billion annually on Indian programs for federally recognized Native Nations, estimates indicate that only ten cents in every dollar actually reaches those desperately in need.(10)


 * __Physical Health issues and Health Practices__**

Native Americans knew a lot about healing and natural medicine. Native American healing is a broad term that includes healing beliefs and practices of hundreds of indigenous tribes of North America. It combines religion, spirituality, herbal medicine, and rituals that are used to treat people with medical and emotional conditions. Native Americans believed that people should live in harmony with the nature and you heal by returning people to that harmony. Most of the tribes had special "medicine" men and women who did the healing. Herbs were often fixed as tea, but sometimes they were burned and the smoke was a healer. They also did cleansing or purification. They did this most often in the sweat lodge. This lodge is like sauna. They were small houses in which they burned cedar or willow. They were burned over the stones which would get hot. Then they would throw water on to make steam. Native Americans believed that the smoke and steam will clean them of diseases. Native Americans also had lots of ceremonies that were about healing. Native American healing is based on the belief that everyone and everything on earth is interconnected, and every person, animal, and plant has a spirit or essence.

Theories of disease causation and even the names of diseases vary from tribe to tribe. Diseases may be thought to have internal or external causes or sometimes both. According to Cherokee medicine man Rolling Thunder, negative thinking is the most important internal cause of disease. Negative thinking includes not only negative thoughts about oneself but also feelings of shame, blame, low self-esteem, greed, despair, worry, depression, anger, jealousy, and self-centeredness. Johnny Moses, a Nootka healer**,** says "No evil sorcerer can do as much harm to you as you can do to yourself."Diseases have external causes too. "Germs are also spirits**,**" according to Shabari Bird of the Lakota Nation**.** A person is particularly susceptible to harmful germs if they live an imbalanced life, have a weak constitution, engage in negative thinking, or are under a lot of stress. Other people or spirits may also be responsible for an illness. Another external source of disease is environmental poisons. These poisons include alcohol, impure air, water, and some types of food.Native American healers believe that disease can also be caused by physical, emotional, or spiritual trauma. These traumas can lead to mental and emotional distress, loss of soul, or loss of spiritual power. In these cases the healer must use ritual and other ways to physically return the soul and power to the patient. Some diseases are caused when people break the "rules for living." These rules may include ways of showing respect for animals, people, places, ritual objects, events, or spirits. Native American healers have several different techniques for diagnosing an illness. These may include a discussion of one's symptoms, personal and family history, observation of non-verbal cues like posture or tone of voice, and medical divination. More important than the particular technique is the healer's intuition, sensitivity, and spiritual power.There is no typical Native American healing session. Methods of healing include prayer, chanting, music, smudging (burning sage or aromatic woods), herbs, laying-on of hands, massage, counseling, imagery, fasting, harmonizing with nature, dreaming, sweat lodges, taking hallucinogens (e.g., peyote), developing inner silence, going on a shamanic journey, and ceremony. Family and community are also important in many healing sessions. Sometimes healing happens quickly. Sometimes a long period of time is needed for healing. The intensity of the therapy is considered to be more important than the length of time required. Even if the healing happens quickly, however, a change in life style is usually required in order to make the healing last.A medicine bundle may also be used in Native American healing. The medicine bundle is a bag made of leather or an animal pelt in which the healer carries an assortment of ritual objects, charms, herbs, stones, and other healing paraphernalia. The bundle is a concrete token of the medicine power that the spirits have given the healer, either for healing in general or for healing a particular illness. The bundles vary according to clan, tribe, and individual. Some Native American healers believe that inherited conditions, such as birth defects, are caused by the parents’ immoral lifestyles and are not easily treated. Others believe that such conditions reflect a touch from the Creator and may consider them a kind of gift. The most sacred traditions are still kept secret, passed along from one healer to the next. Because of Native American tribes’ extensive knowledge of herbs, one of the most common forms of Native American healing involves the use of herbal remedies, which can include teas, tinctures, and salves. For example, one remedy for pain uses bark from a willow tree, which contains acetylsalicylic acid, also known as aspirin. Another practice of Native American healing, symbolic healing rituals, can involve whole communities. These rituals use ceremonies that can include chanting, singing, painting bodies, dancing, exorcisms, sand paintings, and even limited use of mind-altering substances to persuade the spirits to heal the sick person. Rituals can last hours or even weeks. These ceremonies are a way of asking for help from the spiritual dimension. Prayer is also an essential part of all Native American healing techniques.

Now many Native Americans see their healers for spiritual reasons, such as to seek guidance, truth, balance, reassurance, and spiritual well-being, while still using conventional medicine to deal with “white man’s illness.” However, they believe that the spirit is an inseparable element of healing. Many Native medicine practices were driven underground or lost because they were banned or illegal in parts of the United States until 1978, when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed. Even now, there are difficulties with ceremonies and rituals on sacred sites. These activities are sometimes forbidden because the land now serves other purposes. Today, Native American and American Indian community-based medical systems still practice some Native American healing practices and rituals. Some of the most common physical health problems for Native Americans are: Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Obesity, Pneumonia, Chronic liver disease, and Cirrhosis. Native women have 2.4 times the rate of diabetes as women in the general population. Men have higher proportions of diabetes (1.5 times), gallbladder disease (1.4 times), and rheumatism (1.3 times) than men in the general population. Over all Native Americans have a lower prevalence of cancer, but higher prevalence of diabetes and gallbladder disease.(1)

Mental Health issues among Native Americans are : Depression is number one followed by Alcohol abuse, Suicide(although much lower than whites) ranked as the eighth leading cause of death for American Indians/Alaska Natives of all ages. (3), Elder Abuse, and Dementia due to the high prevalence of diabetes.(1) Alcohol was the most common primary substance of abuse reported among young adult American Indian admissions for both genders, with males more likely than females to have reported it as a primary substance of abuse (61.1 vs. 44.7 percent). Male admissions were also more likely than female admissions to report primary marijuana abuse (22.4 vs. 16.0 percent). Female admissions, however, were almost three times more likely than their male counterparts to report methamphetamine as the primary substance of abuse (17.5 vs. 5.9 percent). In addition, primary methamphetamine abuse was more common among young adult American Indian female admissions than among non-Hispanic White (13.2 percent) or non-Hispanic Black (2.8 percent) female admissions of the same age. Young adult American Indian female admissions were also more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to report primary abuse of opiates other than heroin (7.3 vs. 3.2 percent) or cocaine (5.9 vs. 2.4 percent). (2) Mental health services are not easily accessible to American Indians and Alaska Natives, due to lack of funding, culturally inappropriate services, and mental health professional shortages and high turnover. For these reasons, Native Americans tend to underutilize mental health services and discontinue therapy.(3) The percentage of American Indian or Alaska Native adults who needed treatment for an alcohol or illicit drug use problem in 2010 was higher than the national average for adults (18.0 vs. 9.6 percent) (4)
 * __Mental Health issues__**

(Created By: Missy Beckwith)

(1)http://www.stanford.edu/group/ethnoger/americanindian.html#II (2)http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/239/239AmInd2k10.htm (3) http://www.sprc.org/library/ai.an.facts.pdf (4) [] (10) http://www.lenapeprograms.info/Census/Indian_Health_Care.htm