The treatment of a chronic illness is supposed to be collaborative unlike the treatment of the acute illnesses which is done on a patient. For instance, patients with acute illnesses only need to follow the doctor’s prescriptions for them to stabilize their conditions while the treatment of chronic diseases is rarely successful (Ragins, 2014). More so, patients with chronic disorders must undergo chronic changes while going on with their lives to impact their chronic illness.
What Are Some of the Adjustments We Have to Make in Providing Care to a Person with a Chronic Illness?
According to Ragins (1994), the adjustment that needs to be done in the process of providing care for chronic illness patients is engaging them in the treatment. Also, the care provider should adjust to their irrational behavior while education them. Furthermore, the caregiver should adapt to this patients’ inability to learn from the past and use UCLA’s training skills module.
What Are Some Examples You Can Draw on from Physical Illness and the Management Of Chronic Disease?
The examples which I can draw include the active engagement of the patient in their own treatment of the illness. The second example is using self-help techniques and teachings for the management of the chronic illness.
How Are the Roles Different for the Patient in Chronic vs. Acute Illnesses?
Ragins (1994) states that acute illness only requires the patient to follow the medical practitioner's orders while the chronic illness requires the patient to stay living in healthcare institutions for a long term while waiting for the treatment to effect. Sadly, the treatment of chronic illness is not always successful. Similarly, the patient suffering from chronic illness must undergo chronic changes while the patients ailing from acute disease may choose to drop out of treatment since hospitalization is a revolving door to such illness (Deegan, 1996).
What Is the Role of Teaching in Chronic Illness?
Teaching makes the patients understand how to take care of themselves. Additionally, teaching chronic disease patients will make them understand the changes they need to make in their lives to stop being hospitalized (Ragins, 1994). Similarly, not teaching them will compel us to take care of such patients over and over again.
How Can We Assist Individuals in Dealing with the Stigma that Accompanies Being Psychiatrically Labeled?
Psychiatrically labeled individuals can be helped through psych-educational methods which are the fundamental components of CBT program (Slade, 2017). This method provides relevant approaches to depression, thus dealing with the stigma. Similarly, such patients can be helped through normalization and education which reduces stigma and improves collaboration.
Is There Value in just Coming up with New Terms to Describe Various Mental Health Diagnoses (as the Japanese Have Done)?
There is no value in coming up with such new terms. The current terms are appropriate since they have all the necessary procedures for the diagnosis of psychiatrically labeled individuals. Such methods have been effective.
What Do You Think Are the Major Internal and External Struggles for Individuals who Have Been Psychiatrically Labeled?
Internal struggles include fluctuations in mood related to experiences and activities, the absence of psychosocial stressors and mood swings outside the normal range. Also, depression is another internal struggle. On the other hand, External struggles include environmental connections, conflicts, and auditory hallucinations.
What Is the Impact on how These Individuals Live Their Lives and Make Life Choices?
Internal and external struggles affect the patient’s interpersonal relationship. Internal struggles affect the patient’s ability to cope better with relationship problems which are often associated with bipolar disorders (Mairs, 2012). External struggles like auditory hallucinations affect patients when they fall asleep in that they can hear a phone ringing but when they wake up to pick, they find that there is nobody. All these struggles also affect life choices mostly relationships.
References
Deegan, P.E. (1996). Recovery and the conspiracy of hope. Retrieved from https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/college-of-health/departments/center-for-human-development/full-lives/pastconferences/_documents/recovery-and-the-conspiracy-of-hope.pdf
Mairs, H. (2012). Cognitive-behavior therapy for severe mental illness. Mental Health Practice (through 2013), 16(1), 8.
Ragins, M. (1994). Recovery: Changing from a medical model to a psychosocial rehabilitation mode. The Journal, 5(3), 8-10.
Slade, M. (2010). Mental illness and well-being: The central importance of positive psychology and recovery approaches. BMC Health Services Research, 10(1). doi:10.1186/1472-6963-10-26
Slade, M. (2017). Thriving after recovering from a mental health problem. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/thriving-after-recovering-mental-health-problem
