Holistic health approaches, often referred to as integrative or complementary, focus on body, mind, and spirit to maintain and regain health. The two terms are often interpreted to mean that body, mind, and spirit are addressed in person-centered, low-tech ways in combination with hi-tech medical model interventions prescribed for specific conditions. With the explosion of digital health technologies, it is crucial to consider how digital health diagnostics and interventions are applied across the body, mind, and spirit spectrum to improve health. Let's examine this issue to get a better sense of the coalescence of holism and digitalism.
Let us start with the body. A quick search of the Internet will document that most Americans use some form of digital health device to track physiological parameters. For example, there are more than 50 000 such devices available for purchase on Google Play.1 Research data suggest that the use of these devices may improve health outcomes, particularly in self-care efforts, such as tracking diet and exercise-related variables. Digital health devices also promote self-awareness and self-responsibility. For example, Huddy Health (http://www.huddyhealth.com), a digital health company, provides customized digital tools to monitor specific health conditions. One such product, the Compass,2 tracks health variables specified by the practitioner with the patient's unique health problems in mind. The Compass promotes a partnership and dialogue between the provider and the patient so that there is an understanding of why the selected variables are being tracked, how the data should be interpreted, and what behaviors or interventions may need adjustment. This arrangement enhances the patient-provider relationship and puts the "personal" back into clinical care. Were you to design a Compass for yourself or a patient, what variables would you monitor?
Apps for the mind. One Mind PsyberGuide (http://www.onemindpsyberguide.org) is a Web site that reports on the development, availability, and efficacy of apps to address mental health issues. By 2020, there were 10 000 apps that could be instrumental in alleviating depression, anxiety, stress of various types, sleep problems, phobias, and other mental disorders. Research studies reported on this Web site reveal that, in many cases, there is no difference between traditional and digital interventions and, in some, efficacy was better with digital. The declining state of teen mental health is particularly alarming postpandemic. One Mind PsyberGuide publishes a free guide to identify digital tools that can be effectively used to improve teen mental health.3 Given the ubiquitous use of mobile devices among young people, digital apps to improve mental health may likely become the most accepted, cost-effective, and efficacious form of the prevention and treatment of mental disorders in future decades.
The spirit goes digital. More than 500 years ago, after the invention of the printing press, the Bible became accessible to the masses, which heightened spirituality and the development of new communities of faith. The digital revolution is having even greater impact today. Iannone4 offers an insightful definition of what he terms, digital spirituality, "...an emerging wave where individuals and faith communities use digital culture and technology (digitalism) in a purposeful way to fulfill their religious and spiritual needs and aspirations." The pandemic has taught us that we do not need to gather, in person, each week to foster our spiritual and religious commitments. There are digital tools available to deepen our spiritual senses such as podcast prayers, short meditations, and short exercises available digitally that heighten spiritual awareness in both the Eastern and Western traditions.
Digitalism has permeated body, mind, and spirit holistic interventions; therefore, nurses need to be aware of its extent, reliability, and efficacy. Those of us who are proponents of holistic health philosophy and practices need to realize the potential of digital diagnostics and interventions in holistic health care.
-Gloria F. Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN, FCPP
Editor in Chief
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