Improving Stroke Patient Care and Awareness

The provided document is a detailed analysis of the topic 'Improving Stroke Patient Care and Awareness.' It includes references to various books and journals that discuss the importance of addressing health issues in patients with stroke. The assignment also emphasizes the need for easier funding programs, self-management support interventions, and problem-solving therapy during outpatient stroke rehabilitation to improve coping and health-related quality of life.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES-
CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Overview of the health history....................................................................................................3
Overview of the social history....................................................................................................3
Family Background.....................................................................................................................3
Main health and Social challenges..............................................................................................4
History of Health interventions...................................................................................................4
History of Social Interventions...................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Critical analysis of the literature of the individual's health condition.........................................4
Service provision specific to Adam's Case.................................................................................6
Policies, practice, care delivery service and structure for addressing the issue in Adam's Case 8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Details of the case study:
Name: Adam Toms
Gender: 01/02/1971
Sexual Orient: Heterosexual
Marital Status: married to Shabi
Employment Status: Unemployed
Nationality: English- Born in Coventry
Cultural Background: (White UK)
Religion: (Christian)
Overview of the health history
According to Adam he has a quite healthy youth and childhood with some illness except
mumps and measles that too when he fist stated going to school. When he was 19 years of the
age he had appendicectomy, however, he recovered very quickly. Before his stroke that
happened 2 years ago, his complete adulthood life he was well. Foe his stroke he had to spend
almost 2 months in the hospital needing speech therapy, occupational therapy, drug therapy,
intensive physiotherapy. He still need to continue taking his medication for blood pressure as
well as a Statin.
Overview of the social history
Adam is the oldest brother to his two other brothers who were born to a middle class
working family in Coventry. His father was a warehouse manager at a local departmental store
whereas his mother was a dinner lady at a local primary school. He was an average student in his
studies and left school at an age of 16 years and started working at the same company where his
father use to work as an administrator. He stayed and worked in the company until five years ago
as the store in which he use to work closed down and after that he found a job of an admin in a
housing agency. But after his stroke he has not returned to his work. He lived outside Coventry
with his 20 years old daughter and his wife. His daughter is currently studying fashion at a local
university.
Family Background
He had a stable family background and lived happily with his parents and brothers. His
father was employed constantly whereas his mother used to work part time only during school

terms. All of his cousins as well as his relatives all used to live in Coventry and used to saw them
regularly. He also remembers that his parental Granddad had a strange turn and suffered speech
problems and severe limp problems after that at the age of 60 years.
Main health and Social challenges
His easy life was trouble free and happy. However his family was not well off and had to
suffer financial problems sometime but always managed to get by. Apart from some small and
minor health problems, he never ever had to suffer any kind of significant health challenges until
his recent stroke.
History of Health interventions
Physical Interventions: other then few small health interventions in his earlier life Adam never
ever had or needed any kind of significant medical treatment until he had a stroke. He had to
spend at-least 2 months in hospital having speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy
with a careful manage with the intermediate effects stroke and in order to control his high blood
pressure with increased cholesterol level. Now he is continuously been monitored by his GP and
continuous to take the medications. He needs a low salt, low fat and low sugar diet.
History of Social Interventions
After the discharge from the hospital a social worker helped Adam and his family to
apply for all the benefits that he was entitled to get as he was helpless because of his stroke. He
now also has a community social worker from whom he can seek advice from time to time.
MAIN BODY
Critical analysis of the literature of the individual's health condition
Health conditions of Adam was quite good before he suffered a stroke. Financial
condition of his family was not quite good. He was a admin at housing agency but had to leave
this job after he suffered a stroke (Arch and et.al., 2016). He had to take the help and advice of a
community social worker from time to time due to the financial conditions of his family. He was
also diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol problem after his stroke. He needed
the help of social workers as after his stroke he had to analyse many factors such as culture,
ethnicity, discrimination and socio economic factors.
Culture in health includes good well-being of an individual and promotion of well being
and flourish it geographically, demographically. There are various communities that helps in
decision making of an individual so that opportunities are created for them which eventually

helps a healthy life style. The community social worker was helping Adam and his family in in
the same so that he and his family can live a healthy lifestyle as he was unemployed after his
stroke and had to take medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol. It is important to be
considered as it affects the health of an individual in many ways as it creates health problems. It
also helps in changing health perception, death and illness perception. This also helps the patient
in seeking required help and the type of treatment they should prefer (Gosmanova and et.al.,
2016). Adam needs a social workers who will provide him guidance to overcome cultural
factors.
Ethnic factors is related to Adam's problem in many ways as it is the inherited status
based on the society in which we live. It is mostly inherited because of hereditary family
problem. According to a research Ethnic Disparities in stroke has continued to increase in past
few years. Unambiguity in ethnic factors creates a great burden of diseases especially in stroke.
It has been seen that minor ethnic groups have high rate of sever stroke. In the case study also
says that Adam's father and brother both suffered from high blood pressure problem but he never
ever considered it. As diagnosed by the GP the main reason for his stroke was high blood
pressure problem. So, it can be said that this ethnic factors affected the health of Adam and he
needed to continue his treatment so that this effect of ethnic factors do not hinder his health and
can get well soon enough. According to a research it has been said that men and women with no
heriditory problem have less probability of suffering from stroke as compared to others (Visser
and et.al., 2016). There are many other factors that affects the overall health of Adam in many
ways such as Aggression and Violence are quite common in the patients of Stroke. It has been
seen that anger, violence are most common symptoms of post stroke depression which affects
more than one third of the patients of stroke survivors (Kjeldsen and et.al., 2016). Some of the
most common factors of this is stress, anxiety, hopelessness, anger etc. Due to which Adam was
time to time taking advices from a community social workers who was helping him to avail all
the benefits that he was entitles as he was helpless after his stroke.
Discrimination is also one of the major issue that affects the health issues in many ways.
Discrimination at work, unfairly treatment has been observed as one of the main factor due to
which a person can become a patient of chronic disease. According to a study it has been
observed that due to these discrimination factors biological factors like high blood pressure, high

sugar, cholesterol etc. increases within an individual which becomes a major factors and leads an
individual towards chronic diseases such as stroke, diabetes etc.
Socio-economic Issues have a greater impact on post stroke status of a patient. As post
stroke maintenance for a patient is costly because of regular check up, medicines etc. As Adam
was unemployed as he has to leave his job post stroke (Lewis and et.al., 2015). So, the economic
condition of their family was not good. As a result he required social workers help to avail all the
benefits which he was entitled. This also helped him in relieving his stress as according to a
research due to lower family income many stroke patients had to suffer functional impairment
which further degrade their health quality. So, it can be said that the functional outcome of the
stroke patient depends upon their socio-economic condition. As economic condition of an
individual hampers their living lifestyle as well which further impacts their post-stroke health
status.
There is one more factor due to which cardiovascular condition of a patient degrades and
can suffer a stroke is their carelessness towards their health due to which they suffer high blood
pressure, cholesterol etc. which further becomes a reason of major stroke (Issel and Wells, 2017).
This is due to difficult socio-economic factors that an individual has to go through i.e. bad
economic conditions which affects the lifestyle of an individual due to which they tend to ignore
their heath and suffer such health problem. Due to these health problems number of stroke
patients increases. These health problems like high blood pressure can be controlled by within
few interval of time consulting and recommending a GP so that they can improve their health
condition.
Service provision specific to Adam's Case
Service provision can be defined as a wide range of activities that are provided to ill or
disabled people. Activities such as rehabilitation service, provision of assistive devices,
occupational therapy, health services etc. In this case study Adam a patient who has suffered
stroke 2 years age due to high blood pressure and cholesterol (Pavli and Maltezou, 2017). There
are many services that will be needed by Adam post stroke. There are various kinds of assistive
devices that can be used by Adam which will help him in improving his health condition.
Assistive devices are those equipments that can be used by an individual which will help them to
make their daily activities much easier to perform. These devices can be used for walking,
communicating etc. patients who had recently suffered from stroke find it difficult to

communicate properly i.e. it becomes difficult to understand the language spoken by them.
Adam suffered the same speech problem after his stroke (Van Hecke and et.al., 2017). People
and doctors near him noticed a certain gibberish ness his speech which he needed to improve.
For this there are many assistive devices that can be used for communicating properly. In Adam's
case Augmentative communication devices can be used. These devices help the patient in to
communicate by supporting the speech and helps in reducing gibberish-ness in the speech. There
are many electronic devices that can be used for the same. There are many assistive devices that
can can be used by stroke patients like Adam. Patients with stroke sometimes face problem in
walking. There are various assistive devices that can be used by the patient which will help them
to walk properly with support.
Many stroke patients such as occupational therapy after their stroke. Occupational
therapy is used for particular activities that work as an aid for patients with both physical and
mental illness (Fryer and et.al., 2016). This therapy helps an individual to achieve well being,
health and also helps in participating in various activities that helps in healthy living. This
activity is for both the patients and their family which helps them to identify what kind of
activities are meaningful, relevant and important for them. These occupational therapist interact
with the patient so that they can understand the kind of environment patient lives in or a kind of
environment they require for the functions to be performed. This therapy helps the stroke patient
to become independent in performing their daily activities, related to leisure, work, parenting etc.
In this self-care skills are taught to the patients which includes different kind of adaptive
equipments which helps them in maximizing their performance in daily activities. This therapy
also help the patient in identifying all kinds of ongoing defect in the patient such as weakness,
limited engagement in ADL's.
There are various other kind of health services which helps the patient's like Adam in
recovering from the stroke with the help of various kinds of therapies such as drug therapy,
physiotherapy, rehabilitation etc. In drug therapy different kind of drugs or medicines are given
to the patient which helps them in recovering from the stroke (Hebert and et.al., 2016). These
drugs also helps in reducing other health casualties such as high blood pressure, cholesterol etc.
which helps the stroke patient to recover from their present conditions. In Adam's case he was
diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol which were the main reason for this
stroke. So such type of drugs help the patient in maintaining the health conditions by reduction

of high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc. so that his health conditions and well being is
maintained in an effective manner.
In rehabilitation Patients like Adam are treated in a manner which helps them in gaining
back their lost abilities. These rehabilitation services help the patient in recovering form the their
condition. Acute care is provided to them which helps them in recovering from their condition
and prevents from getting another stroke, helps in determining the main cause of the condition
and prevents them from other medical conditions and side effects of stroke on the patient's body
(Edelman, Mandle and Kudzma, 2017). It also helps in controlling the diet of the patient and
preventing them from another problem or side effects of the stroke. Physiotherapy is provided to
stroke patients so that they can recover from stroke as soon as possible with the help of exercises.
These exercises help in recovering the strength of the body which is lost after the stroke. There
are various kinds of exercises which might help the patient to gain their strength, reduce their
blood pressure and improve their well being and healthiness.
These service provisions helps in improving the socio economic and various other factors
of the patient as well as for their families which improves their living style of the patient. With
the help of these provision all the post stroke side effects of the body can be eliminated and other
health issues can be controlled so that this problem does not occur again in the future.
Policies, practice, care delivery service and structure for addressing the issue in Adam's Case
Health policies in case of Stroke helps the patient in prevention of stroke, treatment, long
term care and rehabilitation. There are various kinds of policies that help the patient in
identifying stroke symptoms, in treatment and recover from this in a better manner. There is a
stroke association act which helps the health and social care providers and organizations in
identifying stroke patients, helps in generating awareness regarding stroke so that people can
identify all the symptoms of stroke as well all kind of health issues due to which stroke can
occur. It is important as it will help in reducing number of stroke patients and number of serious
casualties.
It has been seen that cardiovascular diseases are one of the top most threat to the nations
as these are the main reason of deaths today. Due to this an affordable care act has been made by
the government in which ways to control high blood pressure, cholesterol level, diabetes is
reduced so that chances of developing a cardiovascular disease is reduced. This Affordable case
act requires health plans so that many types of preventive services can be provided at no or

limited cost so that cardiovascular disease threat can be reduced (Horne and et.al., 2015). This
act helps in identifying and testing high blood pressure and cholesterol patients, Counselling
arranged on the daily use of aspirin, counselling of quitting smoking and counselling of
managing diet, weight loss or managing obesity as these are one of the top most reason for
stroke.
Government has established many types of organizations that helps in identifying health
issues that become the main reason of stroke, helps in complete treatment of stroke at lowest,
affordable price possible. These organizations also try to arrange healthy heart moth in where all
the heath related test are done so that all kind of heart related problems can be identified. These
organizations also arrange some awareness camps where many heart experts come and address
the audience and generate awareness among them so that such kind of problems can be
addressed, identified and treated at early stages possible. Many health and social care
organizations are trying to improve their doctor patient relationship so that patient can
comfortably and openly express their issues and problems to their doctor so that those issues can
be addressed and treated quite efficiently. This will also help in increasing bond and trust among
doctor and patient.
Many times it happens that the economic condition of the stroke patients and their
families is not good which becomes a hindrance in complete and proper treatment and recovery
of the patient. So, there are many types of stroke associations have been started and run by the
government which provides funds to those stroke patients for their treatment and post stroke care
of the patient. These organizations also provide all the required service provisions required by
the patient which might be helpful in their treatment (Prince and et.al., 2015). Nowadays many
hospitals have dieticians in their hospitals who specifically provide consultancy to the patient
regarding their diet which also helps them in improving their diet.
There are many kinds of community social services which helps such type of patients in
availing all the benefits that they should get due to their helplessness they suffer because of their
stroke. Such kind of social workers helps these cardiovascular disease patients in recovering fast
and availing all the benefits they should get. They also provide time to time counselling to the
patient and their family members so that they can overcome from that disease and improve their
wellness and life style. As in the case study of Adam post-stroke he was provided with several
type of therapies, assistive devices etc. which helped him in recovering from his stroke. He also

took advice from community social workers who helped him in identifying ways to overcome his
issues which he and his family was facing. Those social workers also helped Adam in applying
all the benefits that he was entitled to get due to his stroke as he was unemployed after his stroke
and was facing economic problems.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that that the main issue that was to be
addressed from the discussion from this case study was management, treatment and cure post-
stroke a patient and their family should get. As per the discussion there are various factors that
affect the overall health, strength of an individual who had a stroke and had gone through its
treatment. There are various kinds of effects that the body has to suffer as a result of the stroke
which takes a lot of time, care and economy so that the patient can recover from those problems
in a better way. This case study also highlights that there are many factors and health issues due
to which these cardiovascular diseases occur and patients are not aware of those problems or
issues. In this Case study of Adam it has been identified that he was suffering from high blood
pressure and high cholesterol level which became the main reason of his stroke which he was not
aware about and as a result he suffered a stroke. After the stroke he had been hospitalized for
almost two and half months for post recovery form the stroke and post-stroke they had to
undergo various kinds of intensive therapies such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy, drug
therapy, speech therapy.
The main challenges that arises from this complete discussion are many. One of the main
challenge is awareness i.e. Adam was not aware of all the health issues the was suffering despite
of the fact that both his father and brother had high blood pressure problem. Another issue is
unawareness about all the social, economic benefits that he was entitled to get as he heeded to
get held and advices from community social workers so that he can know all the benefits that he
can get. He was was also unaware of all the kind of healthcare benefits that are provided to the
cardiovascular disease patients both at the time of stroke treatment and post-stroke treatment.
Main recommendations for development and future practices, policies and research
related to the case study are: In every six months free health check-up should be organized in
different areas of the city so that people participate in it and identify as well as get aware of their
health issues that they are suffering from. Patients should be explained of all the benefits that
they can avail before the starting of the treatment. Funding program for those patients should be

made much more easier so that they can easily understand and avail it for the treatment, service
provisions etc.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arch, A.E., and et.al., 2016. Missed ischemic stroke diagnosis in the emergency department by
emergency medicine and neurology services. Stroke. 47(3). pp.668-673.
Edelman, C.L., Mandle, C.L. and Kudzma, E.C., 2017. Health Promotion Throughout the Life
Span-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Fryer, C.E., and et.al., 2016. Self management programmes for quality of life in people with
stroke. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (8).
Gosmanova, E.O., and et.al., 2016. Association of systolic blood pressure variability with
mortality, coronary heart disease, stroke, and renal disease. Journal of the American
College of Cardiology. 68(13). pp.1375-1386.
Hebert, D., and et.al., 2016. Canadian stroke best practice recommendations: stroke
rehabilitation practice guidelines, update 2015. International Journal of Stroke. 11(4).
pp.459-484.
Horne, M., and et.al., 2015. Organisation, practice and experiences of mouth hygiene in stroke
unit care: a mixed‐methods study. Journal of clinical nursing. 24(5-6). pp.728-738.
Issel, L.M. and Wells, R., 2017. Health program planning and evaluation. Jones & Bartlett
Learning.
Kjeldsen, S.E., and et.al., 2016. Arterial stiffness predicts incident atrial fibrillation in the
framingham heart study: a mechanistic contribution in people with high blood pressure
or history of hypertension.
Lewis, S.L., and et.al., 2015. Medical-Surgical Nursing-E-Book: Assessment and Management
of Clinical Problems, Single Volume. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Pavli, A. and Maltezou, H., 2017. Health problems of newly arrived migrants and refugees in
Europe. Journal of travel medicine. 24(4).
Prince, M.J. and et.al., 2015. The burden of disease in older people and implications for health
policy and practice. The Lancet. 385(9967). pp.549-562.
Van Hecke, A., and et.al., 2017. Systematic literature review on effectiveness of self‐
management support interventions in patients with chronic conditions and low socio‐
economic status. Journal of advanced nursing. 73(4). pp.775-793.

Visser, M.M., and et.al., 2016. Problem-solving therapy during outpatient stroke rehabilitation
improves coping and health-related quality of life: randomized controlled
trial. Stroke. 47(1). pp.135-142.