Symptoms And Consequences Of Illness

The article ‘When the body speaks’ written by Suzanne O’Sullivan M.D published on 3rd January 2017 in the Psychology Today Magazine. The magazine is up for grab every two months in the United States of America. Suzanne put forth that most physical diseases have a high degree of possibility to have originated from the mind. Many people suffer physically resulting from suppressed emotions such as sadness, anger, and anxiety forcing the body to react in line with the stress. The mind controls the body such that if you develop positive thoughts about your health, it will be manifested physically (O'Sullivan, S. 2017). However, people in the society think themselves ill unconsciously and therefore end up sick physically. Psychosomatic illnesses

Mental illness has become a popular topic in the media as of late and has recently become legitimized as a valid medical illness. In the short story Metamorphosis, authored by Franz Kafka, Kafka describes a young man seemingly wheeling in a world of depression. By comparing the hardships of Gregor’s misfortunes in this short story Kafta illustrates what it feels like to be going through life without meaning. Specifically I will focus on and include Kafka’s depiction of alienation, stigma, and being shunned while having an illness. Additionally, I will look at the burden taken on by the family, who has to deal with a loved one suffering from an illness.

Her perception of her “illness” was that “it’s a gift—it allows you to see the truth.”

Because identities are both externally prescribed and internally experienced, it is crucial that we evaluate the methodology by which medical professionals identify and treat illnesses. At the point where suffering is unique to each individual, it is important that we also consider the tools that each person has to describe their symptomology, as to elucidate their suffering in the context of the clinical perspective so that appropriate resources and treatments would be made available to them. One such methodology used to understand illnesses is known as the “illness narrative” in which Dr. Arthur Kleinman describes in his book, The Illness Narratives, as “[An] alternative therapeutic approach [originating] in the reconceptualization of medical care as (1) empathic witnessing of the existential experience of suffering and (2) practical coping with the major psychosocial crises that constitute the menacing chronicity of that experience” (10). Kleinman argues that this type of engagement between the doctor and the patient is key to the recovery process of the patient. However, his argument relies on one, the effectiveness of empathy through storytelling within the doctor-patient relationship, and two, the ability of the doctor to fully understand the illness experience depicted by the patient. These two implicit assumptions are contested by Toni Morrison in her novel, Home, where she asserts that we cannot fully empathize with another’s

To illustrate the long term effects of disease, consider this analogy about an individual with cancer. Developing cancer will generate short-term and long-term effects in a person’s life. The disease and the medications could affect their personality and therefore their social relationships and they could be confined to a hospital for months and not be able to communicate well with the friends that are unable to visit. Cancer patients’ financials are consumed by countless expensive medical bills, and their personality could be effected from the medication as well. Like cancer, the effects eating disorders can span throughout an entire lifetime. Either way, if one choses to adopt the lifestyle of an eating disorder or acquires one over time, this disease will have the same effects on the body, mind, and social wellness.

The idea of the social construction of the illness experience is based on the concept of reality as a social construction. From the work of Berger and Luckmann (1996), they argue that actions can only interpreted through the meanings people give them. The reality of a thing and what it means is dependent on the attitudes, values, and norms of the society in which the thing is and the context of the situation. Sociologists claim that biological knowledge can be socially explained to show that the knowledge of health and disease is socially constructed through different ways which are political, social and cultural environment.

Throughout history, the general population of the world has defined illness through many different perspectives of their respective cultures. These cultures have assisted in constructing the definition of illness that is seen around the world. In addition, the definition of illness is different, but one unifying factor is that; illness is always based on the social worlds of the sick. Furthermore, the basic definition of illness is that it affects the body and mind of an individual, indeed, this is true but illness has a much more detailed meaning. The way illness is perceived varies from culture to culture.

Annually more than one million people in the United States receive care in the intensive care unit (ICU) (Chandrashekar & Perme, 2009, p.213). Patients who are critically ill often require multiple therapies, monitoring devices, and mechanical ventilation. A majority of the critically ill patients remain in bed rest during their ICU and hospital stay. Prolonged immobility and bed rest have negative effects on patient outcomes leading to acute complications, longer ICU and hospital stay, and increase in mortality and morbidity rates (Dang, 2013).

From a sociological point of view, the disease can be seen as a form of social rejection, in which the individual takes on a specific role. The doctor’s visit can be seen as the recognition of the patient’s inability to solve the problem on his/her own and the faith in the competence of a physician. The state of the disease leads to the dysfunctional social system since a person cannot perform the necessary social responsibilities and this has a negative impact on the social system as a whole. The interaction of the doctor and the patient is directed to solving the general problem: the return of the sick back into the social system, which thus regains the equilibrium, disturbed by the exclusion of a patient from the general community due to the disease (Frank, 2013). This concept refers to the sick role, developed by Parsons, that a patient takes on once he/she is identified as ill. The sick role has four key characteristics: a patient

Martin’s phenomenology of being a patient can be viewed through two different lenses of intersectionality (Doane & Varcoe, 2015). Martin’s ability and Martin being marginalized were two aspects that restricted and characterized Martin, creating limitations and isolation from Martins’ friends, his family and the world (Van Herk, Smith & Andrew, 2010). Those two aspects of intersectionality impacted not only Martins’ health and wellness (Van Her, Smith & Andrew, 2010). Martin’s illness caused Martin’s family stress due to inadequacy regarding support along with answers from the health care professionals. The stress from Martin’s family impacted Martins phenomenology through making him feel responsible, detached and secluded from his family considering Martin could observe and understand how his illness was tearing his family apart (Doane & Carcoe,

Specifically, components of the common sense model that were significantly associated with high levels of depression and anxiety included the perception of; strong illness identity, severe consequence, little control and a psychological cause of illness (Edwards et al., 2001). From their findings Edwards et al., (2001) conclude from this that individual’s beliefs towards their illness may play an adaptive and enduring effect on chronic illnesses such as

When definiting chronicity and to understand chronic illness’ the concepts of, Health, wellness, disease and illness need to be understood,(barkway 2013) as well as feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness, feelings which most people suffering from a chronic illness will experience. (hummel 2013). Sources of uncertainty stem from isufficient information regarding ones illness from medical professionals, as well as personal and social factors. Uncertainty can increase stress, anxiety and loss of control.

Human beings are not immune to diseases. Since the dawn of time, humans have been fighting with illnesses from simple colds to flu to unnamed diseases back then. Nowadays, humans have been able to fight diseases with the use of medications and modern inventions. However, there are diseases that may not be fully cured that man has to live with the rest of their lives. The chronically ill individuals need to manage their illness properly to maintain quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to look into two case studies and to better understand on how to manage chronic illness at their respective developmental stage.

In “The choice between gross and spiritual: Some medical preferences” Mary Douglas tries to explain the normative standards that social communities impose on their members. She does this by taking the example of a person who falls ill and what this means for their role in the community and what the now altered to fit their condition norms, would be in society. She describes being sick as “ adopting a role” in society and goes on to describing how being sick one is obligated to step back from their usual influential role and accept the expected ill person part in society. This part as Douglas (1996) explains is done justice to by either behaving like nothing is wrong, or if the illness worsens then by “taking the medicine, keeping to the sick

From a sociological standpoint illness is usually viewed as a deviant type of behavior. While a medical viewpoint of an illness is that is a deviance from of a biological norm of health and wellbeing. A person is portrayed as ill when their complaints, symptoms, and or results of a laboratory or physical exam represent some type of abnormality. There are criteria for identifying disease. This consists of: identifying the patient’s experience with the sickness, what the physician finds through laboratory tests as well as physical examinations or any other indications showing an abnormality, the symptoms of the patient show a clinical pattern, or in other words represents a theory of disease or model by a diagnostician. A diagnostician is a person who diagnoses such as a physician. At this time, the physician must arrive at a diagnosis and try to apply their medical knowledge to return the person back to a normal state free of abnormalities. Regarding medical sociology, a disease is defined as a physical state that is adverse, where the person has a physiological dysfunction present. While an illness can be defined as a subjective state where an individual is aware of having some sort of disease and causing them to modify their behaviors. Additionally, sickness is a social state where the person who is ill has a reduced social role. Talcott Parson originated the sick role, which illustrates the typical