Discuss about the Chronic Illness And Disease Management.
The current topic focuses on the aspect of chronic condition and disease management in the ones suffering from acute stages of illness. In this respect, health promotion strategies could be implemented in order to provide the support user with better self-managerial skills. The chronic condition management requires that sufficient amount of education be provided to the patients regarding management of lifestyles and habits. The pattern of lifestyle adopted by an individual has sufficient impact upon the present health conditions of an individual. The assignment further focuses upon the importance of implementing of a person centred approach along with the policy of making informed choices. The person centred approach provides sufficient autonomy to the health care and support service users. Additionally, involvement of the family members of the patient helps in the addressing the policy of informed decision making. The assignment also focuses upon the impact of management of symptoms of the chronic disease by providing the patient with sufficient health education.
The current study focuses on the chronic illness suffered by a 62-year-old man Mr George Polaris. He was admitted to the hospital with breath shortness, fever, and cough. Originally, he was treated and given medication for chronic chest infection. However, conducting a series of test and exams confirmed that George was a patient of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and had a long history of Gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD). Though, stable enough George had been long complaining of shortness of a breath and persistent cough to his registered nurse and GP.
On further inquiry, George reported that he had been a chain smoker ever since 14 years of age. Reportedly, George had no allergies or disposition to any drinking problems. George had been suffering from COPD and GERD both of which are long term and chronic sickness. Therefore, the patient here needs to be put under a comprehensive care plan addressing the long terms health needs of the patient. Both GERD and COPD are overlapping diseases and could be related to the smoking addiction possessed by George. The present health condition of George could be related to the presence of relapse of the symptoms of GERD which might further trigger the condition of COPD in him.
In the present context, George Polaris is a 62-year-old man suffering from comorbid conditions of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Gastric Oesophageal Reflux Disorder (GORD). An assessment of the health habits of George the GP attending George found out that George has been a compulsive smoker. He has a habit of smoking at least 20 cigarettes a day, which can have profound effects on his present condition of health. Smoking damages the air sacs, airways and the lining of the lungs. Injured lungs often affect the breathing or respiration rate of the patient, thus severely disrupting the inhalation and the exhalation rate (Monteiro, 2015). On testing and analysis, the respiration rate of George has been found to be at 22 breaths per minute. However, the normal rates of respiration have been recorded at 22 breaths per minute for Mr George Polaris. This could be attributed to the presence of lung functioning disorder in the patient. Additionally, smoking can also have severe impacts on the functioning of the stomach sphincter muscles which aids in digestion (Schwarzer, 2014).
The nicotine contained in cigarettes has been found to have a profound effect on the process of digestion. The nicotine has been found to relax the sphincter muscles of the stomach which prevent reflux of the stomach acid and undigested food products back into the oesophagus. Additionally, eating spicy and sugar rich food has been found to aggravate the problem of indigestion and backflow of stomach acid into the oesophagus (Flodgren, 2015). Therefore, the patient needs to be provided with sufficient education about the health care practices and lifestyle changes which could bring about positive changes in the health of the patient.
The patient should be provided with healthy alternatives by educating them about the health benefits of exercises. The addictive levels of smoking can culminate into more serious and lethal concerns such as lung cancer (Bauer, 2014). Reports and evidence have shown that of the 7000 chemicals found in smoking, 250 have been found to be harmful and 69 out of them can have more serious outcomes (Kennedy, 2013). However, as reported by sufficient research and findings smoking can trigger COPD or make situations of COPD even worse. Smoking could also be related to lowering the pressure on the sphincter muscle of the stomach. This aggravates the condition of acid reflux in people and the inhaled smoke had often been seen to produce severe consequences like stomach cancer. Therefore, the facts and the outcomes need to be presented to the patients in order to educate them sufficiently regarding the alternative and holistic life approaches which could be utilised for optimum health promotion (Kruse, 2015). Thus, the local hospitals could organise health care campaigns along with video presentation to educate the patients of the severe health implication of smoking. The support from a wide number of health care channels along with state and federal level government can help in meeting the health challenges faced in providing effective care and treatment services to care service users like George.
Moreover, George had reportedly worked in a construction factory which means that he has repeated exposure to some of the heavy metals such as silica, asbestos, etc. These metals have been found to get deposited within the lungs on exposure above the threshold level. Thus, in a concentration higher than the threshold levels the chemicals have been found to cause severe respiratory disorders such as cirrhosis of the lungs (Dantic, 2014). Therefore, George needs to be educated about the precautionary measures which he could implement within his own workplace to prevent severe lung infection or aggravating conditions of the COPD. In this context, George could use an air pollution control mask in order to prevent the inhalation of the harmful chemicals. Moreover, he should be explained about the health benefits of sanitation and hygiene measures which could control the harm caused by such chemicals.
A number of evidence based practices could be implemented in order to provide effective care and treatment plan to the ones receiving care for chronic and long term conditions. In this respect, the patient had been suffering from a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Therefore, the registered nurse needs to implement a number of evidence based teaching methods in order to enlighten the care and support service users regarding the prevention and control method of chronic diseases. In this context, a participant group could be developed consisting of the patient receiving care services for COPD along with the doctors and other health care professionals (Ni, 2014). The setting of the promotional strategies could be on the local streets or markets, which are maximum crowd pullers. Thus, mass media campaign could be organised where effective pamphlets and posters could be designed educating the masses about the consequences of being addicted to tobacco. The campaigns should be designed with an aim of providing additional knowledge and education to the community regarding the potential uses of tobacco (Stellefson, 2014). The intervention in this regard could be followed by quitline interventions where the patient suffering from tobacco addictions could be provided with evidence based behavioural and counselling support. The counselling sessions could be continued for a period of one or more months. Additionally, the involvement of the expert health professionals helps in providing additional levels of support.
The management of the symptoms of GERD through sufficient health education is dependent upon the severity of the condition in the patient. The management of the GERD symptoms could be controlled by adopting two of the approaches such as the ‘Step –up approaches’ and ‘Step-down approaches’. The Step-up approaches basically begin with lifestyle changes where dietary measures could be taken in order to prevent the excessive formation of acid in the stomach. This may further prevent the reflux of the corrosive into the oesophagus. Therefore, the patient should be provided with sufficient information regarding various aspects of lifestyle management. The nurses, as well as the GP looking after the care concern of patients like George, need to provide the patient with proper guidelines regarding diet types, which need to be avoided for the management and control of GERD related symptoms. Report and evidence have suggested that lowering the amount segregated drinks and beverages along with cutting down on smoking can bring upon positive improvement in the conditions management of GERD (Pulvirenti, 2014). Evidence based practice focuses upon breaking down the meals into small amounts to be taken at regular intervals (Lou, 2015). Additionally, the patients should be provided with sufficient knowledge about Stepping down mechanism. The method mainly employs the pharmacological intervention for controlling the excess formation of acid in the stomach of the patient. The patient could be presented through sufficient knowledge by organising educational seminars regarding the use of acid blockers, which are over the counter available medications such as antacids – ranitidine cimetidine, etc. These work by blocking the action of histamine which is responsible for pepsin and gastric juice secretion.
The health education strategies need to be designed as per the requirements of the patient. In this respect the patient, i.e. Goerge Polaris had been suffering from comorbid conditions of COPD as well as GERD. Further analysis of the condition of the patient had suggested that he had exposure to certain harmful metals in his construction factory. The patient had been a chain smoker and also possesses gastric reflux disorder. Therefore, educating the patient about the effects of the practices upon the health along with emphasising upon the implementation of light exercises in the daily schedule of the patient could help in reducing the dependency on nicotine and can serve as a healthy alternative.
Additionally, the patient had a long history of GERD which further made his COPD worse. Therefore, the patient should be provided with immediate measures to help him stop smoking. Therefore, organising educational seminars and campaigns along with effective counselling and support could help in the management of the long term condition of the patient (Welsh, 2015).
Conclusion
The current assignment focuses on addressing the health challenges associated with long term care and management of illness which is chronic in nature. In the present context, the patient had been suffering from COPD and GERD. Thus, both the conditions require long term care management plans. However, on analysing the current health status of the patient one could evaluate that the patient lacked much information and sufficient knowledge about the management of his present health condition. Therefore, there is a need to educate the patients regarding self-managerial skills. Thus, educating the client in aspect of self-management often plays a pivotal role in the provision of sufficient autonomy to the support users. Additionally, the involvement of the family members of the support service users can help in the management of such chronic conditions. Therefore, educating the patients experiencing chronic illness patterns could be done with the help of the implementation of community development programs along with generation of more awareness in the patients regarding the complexity of a particular disease. Thus, presenting the patients with a surplus amount of information could help in providing with ample alternative options which could be used by them for better management of their health issues. In this respect, a number of strategies and options could be exercised in order to provide the required amount of information to the patient and his family. The information could be provided with the help of organising campaigns educating the masses regarding the benefits offered by healthy lifestyle options. Additionally, organising community development programs could help in generating positive and holistic lifestyle management initiatives.
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