Health Assessment

Running head: HEALTH ASSSESSMENT 1
Health Assessment
Student’s Name
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HEALTH ASSSESSMENT 2
Health Assessment
The illness-wellness continuum is a graphical representation of a wellbeing
concept that was first proposed by Travis in the year 1972. The continuum proposes that being
well does not only mean absence or presence of a disease but also emotional and mental health.
Various models are in existence that solely concerns health and illnesses (Grénman, Hakala, &
Mueller, 2019). There is no any form of staticity among the two terms instead they’re concepts
that are subject to frequent change and progressive evaluation. If there is a concept in human
experience where different beliefs and perceptions determine a slight response to health,
wellness, disease and illness is health. Examination together with the evaluation of the health
illness continuum and its associated relationship to the experience of an individual aids in
realizing the significance of adaptation in maintaining wellbeing and health in an individual.
Present health care is directed more towards illnesses and diseases and a less
focus on general health and wellbeing. The World Health Organization succinctly defines health
as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of
infirmity or disease (WHO). Every person has his own definition of his or her own health
depending on their feeling, whether they have symptoms of any illness, and whether they can
comfortably carry out their daily activities. Illnesses too has an aspect of individuality
(Thompson, 2019). It is only at a personal level, that one can determine whether they have
diminished in all the dimensions of life including physical, emotional, intellectual,
developmental and spiritual. It is very possible to state therefore that illnesses are not at all
related to the state of the disease (Simon, Carel & Bird, 2017).
Health is an overall individual experience and not a series of technical diagnoses
(Marques, Nielsen & Jørgensen, 2015). Within the individual experience there is ultimate vitality

HEALTH ASSSESSMENT 3
from the ultimate life experience. Vitality is an aspect of being well and alive and full of energy
a normal person should have. Vitality loss has a probability of leaving an individual drained and
empty, incapable of finding the motivation, and thus affecting the wellbeing in terms of
psychological and physical health (Edelman, Mandle & Kudzma, 2017). It is not only portrayed
as a psychological state but also a physical state of the functioning of the body. At my individual
level I also believe that having no illness or disease is when I have no symptoms to show forth or
no behaviors that are likely to depict that I am not normal. At a personal level I believe that my
wellbeing is when I am normal and not when I am abnormal. Interesting enough is that you never
know when you are abnormal in a case where you have an issue with the state of the mind. It has
been traditionally known and that is what is known to many individuals including myself that if
you are not sick then you are healthy. Sickness in this case means presence or absence of disease
or illnesses. This form of understanding is what most of us have been brought in and we have
grown up knowing, it has thus been difficult to change that mindset to believe that people cannot
be regarded healthy if they have a lot of confounding and surrounding issues in their mind with a
lot of psychological trauma. I have personally never believed to be unhealthy unless I am sick or
suffering from a certain illness. The mindset that at first grounded inside me has never changed
and it is very difficult to change the mindset by making me believe that when I am mentally
disturbed I am unhealthy. Even though I will apply it to other people, rarely will I apply it to
myself.
There are very many options and resources available today that can help me
move towards wellness on the health illness spectrum (Fertman & Allensworth, 2016). The
options together with the resources available have the capability of changing the mindset so that
I don’t only focus on viewing health and wellbeing as absence of disease or illnesses but also my