Applied Approach
The applied approach to medical anthropology is about taking the solutions that the researchers and medical community have come up with, and applying them to real world situations and diseases. This is extremely important when discussing Alzheimer's disease because new information about the disease comes out evvery year. It is our job as a society to put this reseasrcher and these ideas to test to get closer to finding a cure.
Globalization in the world has allowed us to do more in depth research about the disease. New technology has challenged researchers to develop a medication or treatment for the disease. In many countries where their healthcare system is not very developed, Alzheimer's is rarely diagnosed because unfortunately people do not live long enough to experience symptoms. Also, in many of these countries poverty and lack of access to healthcare does not allow them to receive the testing that would diagnose them with the disease. It is important to continue drug research so that one day we will have a medication that can be easily distributed around the world to cure the elderly of this disease.
An anthropologist by the name of Lawerence Cohen has dedicated his life's work to studying Alzheimer's disease. Most of his fieldwork has been done in India to study how these cultures deal with senility and aging. His book No Aging in India highlights his fieldwork and the non-traditional healing practices used to treat patients with symptoms of Alzheimer's. You can read the full text through the California Digital Library by clicking below (1).
Globalization in the world has allowed us to do more in depth research about the disease. New technology has challenged researchers to develop a medication or treatment for the disease. In many countries where their healthcare system is not very developed, Alzheimer's is rarely diagnosed because unfortunately people do not live long enough to experience symptoms. Also, in many of these countries poverty and lack of access to healthcare does not allow them to receive the testing that would diagnose them with the disease. It is important to continue drug research so that one day we will have a medication that can be easily distributed around the world to cure the elderly of this disease.
An anthropologist by the name of Lawerence Cohen has dedicated his life's work to studying Alzheimer's disease. Most of his fieldwork has been done in India to study how these cultures deal with senility and aging. His book No Aging in India highlights his fieldwork and the non-traditional healing practices used to treat patients with symptoms of Alzheimer's. You can read the full text through the California Digital Library by clicking below (1).
The video below is a great example of how important it is to take the solutions that researchers have come up with, and applying them to real world patients.
(1) George, Krucik. "A Brief History of Alzheimer’s Disease." Healthline. N.p., 9 Dec. 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. <http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/alzheimers-history#6>.