Relógio biológico de plantas medicinais: uma ferramenta para promoção, prevenção e recuperação da saúde na atenção básica

Abstract

The initiative to create a medicinal herb garden, also called the Medicinal Plants Biological Clock, is due to its characterization as an educational tool that seeks to rescue and value popular knowledge about the use of medicinal plants, as well as to create a space that contributes to the promotion of health through the cultivation and use of medicinal plants. The garden was built at the Dom Ivo Community Center, between the months of August and December 2020, where a collective vegetable garden already existed. The methodology for the construction of the clock is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine. It consists of 12 beds plus a central bed, with two medicinal plants per space, totaling 26 plants. Each of these divisions corresponds to a human body organ, which presents an energetic rhythm in which the energy passes through the circuit in an already determined way, following the same path every day. Objective: To report the experience of implementing a Biological Clock Garden of Medicinal Plants and learn about the knowledge and practices of users regarding the use of medicinal plants in a Family Health Strategy (FHS) in a city in the central region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Methodology: qualitative research, whose subjects were 20 users over 18 years old of both genders. Data collection was performed by means of a questionnaire. The results were organized into tables and analyzed in the light of the literature, after approval of the Research Ethics Committee. Results: with the construction of the biological clock of medicinal plants, we obtained a didactic space uniting the medicinal plants recommended for the treatment of specific diseases with the main organs of the human body, informing the times of greatest activity of each organ. The study revealed that users have the habit of using medicinal plants in their daily lives, knowledge that was transmitted by their ancestors. Although these users did not know about the clock, all of them indicated that it was important to have a space in the community for the cultivation of medicinal plants. Conclusion: the creation of the clock resulted in an ideal environment for discussions of themes: didactic, multidisciplinary, therapeutic, bringing the community closer to concepts such as: health promotion, popular knowledge, folk medicine, medicinal plants, therapeutic alternatives, wellbeing, nature, environmental preservation, biodiversity and the like. It was possible to notice that the use of medicinal plants as popular therapy is present in the daily lives of users, based on traditional knowledge shared within the family environment. Given the above, it is important to emphasize the need for more trained professionals on the subject, making the use of medicinal plants safer.