Chronic Illness and Management: Understanding Patient Needs and Developing Effective Interventions

This article discusses the challenges faced by patients with chronic illness and the importance of understanding their needs. It also highlights the need for effective communication and collaboration among healthcare professionals to develop interventions that improve the quality of life of patients. The case study of Mrs. Mitchell Collins, a patient suffering from osteoarthritis, is used to illustrate the importance of a holistic approach to chronic illness management.

Running head: CHRONIC ILLNESS AND MANAGEMENT
CHRONIC ILLNESS AND MANAGEMENT
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A chronic illness can be defined as the human health condition that is not only persistent
but also exhibits long lasting conditions. Usually they affect the life of the patients in ways by
which their quality of life is affected. These also make them suffer from additional stress (Ali et
al., 2018). Moreover, it is also seen that such ailments affect the health of the patients by taking
away their capabilities of conducting activities of daily lives. They also make them dependent on
others forever throughout their lives. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the healthcare
professionals to understand the various issues faced by patients suffering from chronic illness
and thereby try to gain more knowledge from their narratives and develop interventions
accordingly.
Mrs. Mitchell Collins was a patient of 70 years old and she was suffering from
osteoarthritis. She seemed to be a very depressed soul as she was quoted saying, “I have no zeal
to live anymore. This is not called a life. I am praying god everyday to own me. Sometimes my
pain gets so high that I feel like dying. However, I cannot embrace death as it is against Jesus
will. So I am waiting for the right time”. This helped to understand that the patient had not been
able to cope up with her symptoms and signs of osteoarthritis. She was suffering for about last
ten years as she was diagnosed with the disorder since her age at 60. It was seen that her
conditions like swelling of the joints and her stiffness of the joint she had really given her a very
hard time. She complained that she could never understand what the professionals wanted to do
with her and why she was having medications and taking the help of different therapies. She was
not being able to understand why her joints started aching and whether it would even help her to
live peacefully. From these discussions, it becomes clear that she never had developed enough
health literacy about her disorder. She has never taught the ways of self care and this always kept
her anxious and nervous about her situation. This was indeed one of the most important

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approaches that the professionals had never paid importance in her care. All these had made her
very tensed and nervous. Depression and anxiety of this kind often have negative outcomes on
the health of the patient and affect the mental and emotional stability of the patient. Therefore,
for this reason, the approach to her treatment was never considered to be correct.
The patient was seen to suffer from different types of symptoms that affected her quality
of life. She complained pain, stiffness as well as limitation in full movement of the joints. She
stated that the stiffness seems to be worst in the morning and situations gradually ease out in the
afternoon. Swelling as well as inflammation of the affected join made her, suffer from poor
quality life (Singh, 2015). All these prevent her from undertaking activities of daily life herself
and she has to depend on the other persons of the family to help her in such activities. She
complained that her osteoarthritis had even affected her hip portion for which she even fails in
putting up her socks and shoes as well as in getting in and out of the care. Often her pain
becomes so high at times that she starts crying until it comes under control again by taking
medications. Hence, the excess pain suffered by her had created a barrier in her activities of daily
life like bathing, dressing, walking, moving and performing any household activities. This
disorder had also affected her mobility and gad made her feel that she has become a disabled
person. This is said so as she had been seen to have stopped going out of her houses and meeting
people in the society and in her community. Previously she was active in community activities
and worked with educational centers of the community. However, her disorder had made her
very difficult to walk independently and she fears of falling anytime as he believes that she no
longer can gain the confidence to walk alone on roads. This had made her feel socially excluded
from the community and loss of such freedom of such an active life had made her morose and
depressed (Visvalingam, Dhillon & Gunasekaran, 2017). She feels alone and hopeless about her

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situation as she no more sees her to enjoy the beauty of nature by going outside the house. This is
one of the barriers indentified of the patient where her mobility had been severely affected that
had created a barrier for her to lead an independent life. This had also made her socially excluded
that had affected her mentally and emotionally.
The patient was seen to lead a very poor life. She stated that her daughter in law was the
main caregiver who used to help her in daily activities of life. Moreover, she also stated that that
her daughter in law often finds it difficult to manage all the activities as she cannot manage
handling the weight of the body. She also stated that such actions often gave her very difficult
time and she used to suffer from backache (Ackerman et al., 2015). Moreover, another of the
support she had was of her General physician whom she visits when her pain goes out of control.
The professionals prescribed her new medication and she comes back and starts the new
medication. This has been going on for years and her conditions have become worse day by day.
Therefore, it was seen that she was feeling hopeless about the treatment of the general physician
but she never tried to change her GP. She did not want to live anymore and therefore all these
seemed worthless for him. A physiotherapist also used to come who used to help the patient but
the physiotherapist never communicated with the GP of any other health professionals and never
tried to know the new needs and requirements of the patient (Chapman et al., 2017). Therefore,
the support that she was receiving on an individual level from her daughter-in-law and from the
general practitioner and physiotherapist from the social and healthcare structures were the only
supports that she had at that moment.
In this scenario, it is extremely important for the healthcare team to develop a proper
planning and involve every expert in order to meet the specific needs of the patient. Different
experts have different important roles that would help the patient to develop better quality life.

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One of the most important actions of the physiotherapist is to follow the modern modes of
therapy and communicate with the patient in order to identify the specific issues she is facing in
her joints (Kisch et al., 2018). Accordingly, he needs to plan the actions and thereby apply the
interventions accordingly. He should communicate with the occupational therapist and the expert
should indentify the issues that she is facing in life due to the disorder. He would be able to help
the patient develop capabilities of daily activities of life and thereby set goals and help the
patient to meet the goals. He would be helping the patient to overcome the fear that she has
developed and hence help in gaining confidence (Hurley et al., 2015). A social worker also needs
to be accommodated who would help her and her daughter in law in managing her activities of
daily life, provide proper educations to her in a timely manner, encourage her to tale short walks
and come out of the house as much as possible. As she feels socially excluded, therefore, it is
very much important for the social worker to engage her in the community (Entwhistle et al.,
2018). These could be done by helping the patient to get involved in community activities like
yoga, meditation classes as well as exercise sessions. She could be arranged with referrals to
interact with other patients with the same disorder and come to develop ideas about the how
others are coping with the symptoms and thereby enable her to gather courage to overcome the
fear.
One of the most important aspects that the healthcare team member needs to incorporate
is the development of the effective communication among each other and work as a team. They
need to discuss with each other about the progress of the patient in each phase and accordingly
develop interventions and modify the interventions according to the current needs of the patient.
Once all the members come together and discuss about the interventions, they would be able to
develop a plan and accordingly work in coordination so that the treatment of the arthritis is

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conducted in a systematic manner (Selten et al., 2016). I believe that one of the most important
aspects that were missing in the care of the patient was that she had no knowledge about the
disorder and she was not able to understand what she could do in order to feel relieved. This is
mainly because of the fact that the professionals who were working with her did not educate her
about her disorder and did not explain to her the interventions that would help her to take self-
care. Moreover, she was taking medication without knowing what the actions of the medications
were and how the medications are helping her. Moreover, the physicians had not performed his
duty entirely by not referring her to the important professionals who needed to work together to
address each of the needs of the patient. Therefore, I believe that management of chronic illness
creates huge emotional and mental pressure on the patient along with physical sufferings.
Therefore, only providing physical aid is not enough. The professionals need to develop
therapeutic relationship with the patient through effective communication, development of trust
and mutual respect and educating about the disorder to the patients. This would ensure best care
to the patient.

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