Partnerships in Chronicity

RUNNING HEAD: PARTNERSHIP IN CHRONICITY
PARTNERSHIPS IN CHRONICITY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

PARTNERSHIPS IN CHRONICITY1
Introduction
I am William, a registered nurse, posted at neurology department. I have been
working in this hospital for last 5 years, working in acute and emergency settings initially but
fore last one year – I am caring for the neurological patients.
The two selected case studies are – 1) Mrs Zoya Solarian with a Type 2 diabetes
mellitus. 2) Mrs. Ally Peterson with relapsing – remitting multiple sclerosis (Bomprezzi,
2015)
My contribution was to research the social, cultural and spiritual aspects of these clients.
Case 1
 Mrs Zoya is a 72 year old lady who has recently come under my care.
 She is suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus since a long time. As because my
patient is suffering with T2DM (type 2 diabetes mellitus) for a very long time, the
metabolic disease can chronically spread to other parts – affecting her eyes, blood
cholesterol and blood pressure (Lin, 2018).
 I came to know that she lives alone in an apartment at 3rd floor and she is a widower.
She has no one to look after. Because she has no children either.
 Talking to her and taking her history, I came to know that she has been raised in a
strict god loving family and how religious discipline is an important part of her life.
 While assessing her cognitive status, I felt that she feel really ‘alone’ but not isolated.
Somewhere deep down, she wanted to live all by herself, peacefully. But given her
chronic condition, inflicted by diabetes type 2 – social isolation is not good for her.
 During my patient centered counselling – when I heard her more at first and tried to
relate how her diabetes mellitus has affected her psychological condition over the
years.

PARTNERSHIPS IN CHRONICITY2
 I realized more so from her insight that her mental and cognitive condition was more
influenced by a melancholic sadness of not having a children. Her husband has been
her own support system but after he was gone, she was left helpless and desolated.
 According to her, her ‘disease’ never felt so overpowering before her husband was
there.
 As a registered nurse and with my handful of experiences as a mental health nurse, I
felt the need of a patient – nurse collaborative approach imperative in treatment of this
case.
 Her social status has to be reconciled at first and it has to be done pertinently. To me,
as per my nursing diagnosis, I found out that her isolated social situation which more
or less being left blank with the demise of her husband – is the main etiology of her
disturbed cognitive state.
 The anti- hypertensive medicines and food diet control would better her physical
condition and if bettering is a high ask, the medication adherence (Lam & Fresco,
2015)would at least maintain her functional status(Hart, 2017) through to the many
years to come by.
 But improving her mental status is more important because it would eventually
increase her functional independence and better her self-dependence.
 I took her to some diabetes focus groups and she made couple of friends there and it is
perhaps good to see her smiling again with her new found friends.
CASE 2
 Mrs Ally Peterson is a 38 year old woman suffering with remitting relapsing multiple
sclerosis.