Managing Chronic Illness: A Case Study

Aging is a summary term of complex biological processes that occurs over the course of life. As an individual age’s, they experience a cognitive, functional and social decline that affects their activities of daily living and general health. As a result of these changes, the older population becomes more susceptible to a variety of illnesses. However, nurses can lessen the severity of these aging related illnesses by teaching and providing the best care for their clients in order to decrease the number of elders that suffer from these diseases through a variety of interventions and strategies. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the nurses’ role in promoting healthy aging in the older population, by addressing a significant issue that impairs the health of many older Canadian adults.

Develop personality, making illness an eventful experience; Forward movement of personality and other ongoing human processes in the direction of creative, constructive, productive personal community living(Meleis,

Acknowledging how the patient perceives illness and health, helps in understanding the beliefs and how they relate with preventing

When someone is suffering or living with a chronic illness it can have a huge impact on them psychologically and socially. Chronic Illness is a condition that is prolonged in duration, usually more than 3 months and is rarely cured (DoH, 2012). Having to cope with a chronic condition might lead to life changes, such as dependency on others, loss of income, which can cause feelings of loss and reduced self-esteem. They can also report feelings of social rejection, poor healthcare and workplace termination due to their presenting condition (Earnshaw, Quinn, & Park, 2011).

As older adults age, they start to get exposed to many chronic illness and they have to learn to deal with their illness on daily basis. Chronic illness prevent many older clients from doing the activities they used to perform every day, and it creates anxiety and depression for some clients because they feel less in control of their activities. Clients with chronic illness have to adapt to not being able to perform basic tasks. Most clients with chronic illness use negative cope strategies by smoking or drinking alcohol. My friend’s father Jonathan Smith, was chosen for this interview because learning about his multiple sclerosis (MS) would give me an idea of the challenges he faced every day, and perceive things from his perspective.

Chronic illness sucks. Many families in Canada and around the world live with a person who has one or more chronic condition. Chrionic conditions can range from heart disease, injury, cancer, and mental illness. Chronic conditions are “impairments in function, development, or disease states that are irreversible . Chronic illness Over the course of three interviews This paper will explore the effects of chronicity on families living with chronic condiditons through research and recounting of interviews .

This paper will address aging population in Canada and the strain this will have on our healthcare system. The aging population will bring with it an increase in chronic conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, dementia, and heart disease. These are complex conditions that the healthcare system is currently not prepared to handle due to the lack of home health supports. This issue is important for the nursing profession because as the population ages, people have more chronic conditions and corresponding need for hospitalization and medical care. Canada’s aging population is not sustainable in our current healthcare system as there is a lack of homecare and health promotion.

There are many methods in which providers are reimbursed for services. Some of these methods are:

Fundamental changes, one of which is managed care, have been introduced to the healthcare system to improve people’s health and deal with challenges of increased healthcare cost and uncontrolled healthcare utilizations (Steele & Merrick and 2013Shi & Singh, 2015).

In general, seniors are vulnerable to a range of chronic health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, chronic heart diseases, arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease which adversely influence their quality of life. These diseases also increase demands on the healthcare system (5). It was reported in 2012 that approximately 85% of seniors aged 65 to 79 years and about 90% of seniors aged over 80 years have at least one chronic condition (6). In 2004, about 1.7% of the total Canadian labour force were seniors. The number of Canadian seniors aged 65 or over participating in the labour force was approximately 300,000 (287,000 of them are employed and 9,000 actively looking for work) (7). This impacts the health of seniors because the more the number of seniors participating in the workforce, the more physically active and healthier they are. Working also provides an additional means of income besides their pension funds which would help improve the quality of life.

Managing and improving health outcomes for such people are enhanced through a HHS MCC Strategic Framework. One of the primary goals of the framework is to provide better information towards healthcare and persons who deliver quality care to persons suffering from multiple chronic conditions (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2010). As provided in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (2010), the primary objectives for directing chronic condition management in the U.S. are as follows: to foster healthcare and public health system changes in order to improve the health conditions of individuals with MCC; provide for better tools and information to the public health, the healthcare, and also to the social services personnel to ensure effective delivery care for said individuals; to maximize the use of proven self-care management and other services by these individuals; and to facilitate research to resolve knowledge gaps as regards interventions and

Many elder people in Canada live alone and with chronic illness. When illness and limitation affects the daily living of older adults, society’s image of these person may change considerably. Even the active and healthy older adults when they become retiree may be seen as helpless and unproductive people; they may be leveled as poorly aged and who are losing their independence.

Ageing is becoming a priority issue in Canada, and healthcare systems are investing large amount of money to enhance the quality of life for baby boomers. The present life expectancy in Canada has reached 80.9 years (Public Health Agency, 2011). According to this estimation, older adults will make up to 18% of the total population by 2021; an equivalent to 6.7 million people. (Rivard & Buchanan, 2006; Smith, 2012). This data highlights the probability of problems that can be caused due to the increased ratio of dependent population which are an older adults. Physiological changes associated with an aging make older adults more reliant on health care services for the treatments and better quality of life while ageing. It is estimated that 74-90% of older adults struggle with at least one chronic condition in Canada (Smith, 2012). The accompanying cost with these diseases are $ 190 billion out of which $ 90 billion is goes directly toward treatment measures (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2011). As a result, the healthcare system is facing many complex challenges relating to improving quality of life for baby boomers and lowering health care costs.

Chronic Disease Management (CDM) in General Practice involves appropriate prevention, early identification and best practice management strategies to treat existing chronic conditions.

HCV infection is most commonly treated with Pegylated, Interferon-a (IFN-a) and Ribavirin (18). There is a raising discussion about the IFN treatment, once is believed that it can improve neurocognitive function after clearing the virus; however, the therapy is linked to psychiatric side-effects such as depressive symptoms, fatigue and insomnia (19).