Significant Life Events: Analysis of Impacts on Health and Social Care

This report examines the impact of significant life events on individuals and groups, drawing on a case study of the Grenfell Tower fire. It explains how such events can cause stress and outlines the stages of the G.A.S model, as well as the various life stages. The report analyzes group responses, particularly from family and friends, and explores the Kubler-Ross grief model. It also assesses the impact of significant life events on health and social care professionals, including carers, volunteers, colleagues, and communities. The report highlights the emotional, physiological, and physical impacts on others, emphasizing the importance of support systems in times of crisis. It also covers the role of governmental and voluntary organizations in providing support.

SIGNIFICANT LIFE EVENTS

Table of Contents
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1. Explain the impact of significant life events on individuals........................................................3
2. Analyse possible group responses to significant life events that occur to one of its members.. .4
3. Analyse the impact for others in health and social care when an individual experiences
significant life events.......................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................6

TASK 1
1. Explain the impact of significant life events on individuals
Significant life events are said as the different experiences, which can change the behaviour
of individual, along with their activities. This events include, change in job, marriage, divorce,
illness or can be injury. Some of these changes like divorce, illness, loss of job, injury and other can
cause to stress for person, where as some events like marriage, being parent can cause to happiness
for that person. These are the changes which take place in the life a person, for identifying this,
Claire Newton has explained a model of life change, in which they use to say that the changes
which took place in human life, they can be small or big, or can desired or undesired. All type of
changes are cause to stress for a person, and several small changes come together to make a big or
very big change in a person's life. In the given case study, the event which took place is the fire in
the kitchen of Grenfell tower, London, which was one of the biggest disaster for people. Around 40
fire engines were working together, and they use to rescue about 65 people out of 100. For
analysing this power of each and every event in human's life, Hans Selye use to give a model, by
which it can be determined that which significant life event have how much relation with stress
(Benson, 2016). For this they use to propose Selye's G.A.S model, which is a combination of three
stages. This is the first ever model, which use to explain that what is biological psychological stress.
These stages are as follow :-
Stage 1 : Alarm – This is the first stage of biological stress, where a person get signs from
their body that they are suffering from some type of stress. According to Hans Selye, in this body of
human goes in 'fight or flight' mode, and also the sympathy nervous of that person get activated.
Stage 2 : Resistance – This the stage where human body remains in alert mode, and do not
have any chance to meet some relaxations. Parasympathetic nervous system use to return several
physiological functions, so that body get normal while the focus of body is on stress.
Stage 3 : Exhaustion – This is the last stage of this model, where according to Hans Selye,
the stress level of body get increased and it goes beyond the capacity of that body. After which,
body start exhausting their resources and in last meet to some disease or death.
There are ample number of signs for stress in a human body, which are as follow :-
1. Low energy.
2. Headache.
3. Upset stomach.

4. Tense muscles.
5. Rapid heart beats, and etc.
Also there are different life stages :-
1. Childhood : Childhood is the where an individual use to go school and take education.
2. Adolescence : It is the stage where individual face some physical changes in their body like
sexual maturity and growth spurt.
3. Adulthood : This is the stage which starts from the age of 20 and end with the life of an
individual.
2. Analyse possible group responses to significant life events that occur to one of its members.
As when an individual face or suffer from any specific life event, then in such conditions
different groups in society play different roles in that and also give different response in the favour
of that person ( Conlon and Bird, 2015). Let's take example from the case study, that the person had
faced disaster of fire where building was burning and fire engine has rescued them. In such
conditions, then there are ample number of groups which have different response in the favour of
suffering person. Response of some important groups are as follow :-
1. Family : In the condition of fire, family is the most concerned group for that person. They
use to take care of that, along with they use to provide proper and needed precautions for
that person. Also in such conditions, person get suffered from phobia of fire, from which
that person can come out by support of family. They have to react positive as this will help
that individual in getting confidence that they can recover, where as negative behaviour of
them can cause to huge problem to that person and can affect mental as well as physical
recovery of that person.
2. Friends : They are the second most concerned group for a person. They use to provide
proper and essential things to them, so that they do not face any problem and also use to
give support to their family. The friends are the person who's positive behaviour with patient
will help them in grooming themselves from mental stress by making them happy, where as
if the response of these people are negative then it can also generate some negative feeling
in individual's mind and also can create feeling that from what they are suffering and how
much pain they are giving to their surrounding.
These are the condition when different groups related to that individual meet to grief, and it
has process. The Kubler-Ross grief model is made up of 5 stages which are as follow :-

1. Denial : This is the first stage of grief, where people think that the world is meaning less for
them and they do not have any concern about the world.
2. Anger : This is the second stage, which is very much important for healing ( Shulman and
Mosak, 2015). This is that stage where person again start feeling and start reacting over
things.
3. Bargaining : This is the stage where person start praying to god and start bagging, so that
they can bargain in the things which they are going to loss.
4. Depression : After the stage of bargaining, people come back in real life and start feeling
depressed, as here people only have empty feelings.
5. Acceptance : This is the last stage of this process, where people use to compromise with
what they have and what they have lost. This condition is OK or can be said as all right
condition for that person.
The case of Grenfell Tower was very serious, and it cause death to ample number of people,
but the people suffered from the event cause to phobia from fire and also get an experience which
they do not forget in future. Where as, it also have make impact on others, like family, friends and
society of that individual, and also affect their mental conditions. Fire in a house is one of the
biggest experience which a person use to face in their life, and after facing it the strategy a person
can adopt is that they can install fire extinguisher in required number, so that they do not face such
condition again. Also there are ample number of governmental as well as voluntary organisations in
UK, which provide support in such conditions. These include Age UK, Samaritans, Cruse
Macmillan cancer support.
3. Analyse the impact for others in health and social care when an individual experiences significant
life events.
When any person suffer from conditions like fire in house, then they use to pose several
affects on other like their family, friends, doctors, nurse and other. In such conditions, the main
impact which goes on family and friend is they get more possessive for that person and where as,
doctor use to give them their services. While, nurse also use to take care of that person ( Vilar-
Gomez and et. al, 2015). This all also have impact for others, like it can cause depression and stress
to their family members and also to their friends. It also poses different impact on other like,
physiological, physical, and emotional. Family of the individual have to suffer from emotional
problems, as it become very difficult for them to handle the patient and also their negative feelings
at that time. Where as, some time this also cause physiological issue for nurse and doctors and this

happens when the condition appear that patient is not ready to take treatment. These conditions
appear generally when person is suffering form any type of hidden grief, where they do not share
their problem with any one or condition may come that they do not have knowledge that what grief
they are suffering from. Along with this, the main support in such conditions are the family
members and friends of that person.
Herein, below impact of others in health and social care when an individual experiences
significant life events is mentioned below:
 Carers- The carers are those who care a particular person and in the condition of are heath
issue, the responsibilities of carer increase.
 Volunteers- The volunteers are also get effected due to the health regarding issues of a
person. In this condition, they are required to be more aware about the health of individual.
 Colleagues- These group of person feel extra sympathy for a diseased person. They want to
do some special for that person so that moral can be increase.
 Communities- These are the group of person who lives at same place. The impact of heath
issues of any person effect to them. They take care of that person with special references.
Impact for others- Herein, below impact of others are mentioned below:
 Depression- When a person suffers from any health issue then depression level increases
because of negative thoughts.
 Emotional stress- As well as impact of health issues occurs on the emotion, person becomes
emotionally weak.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Benson, M., 2016. Lifestyle migration: Expectations, aspirations and experiences. Routledge.
Conlon, M. and Bird, A., 2015. The impact of diet and lifestyle on gut microbiota and human
health. Nutrients. 7(1). pp.17-44.
Shulman, B. H. and Mosak, H. H., 2015. Manual for life style assessment. Routledge.
Vilar-Gomez, E. and et. al., 2015. Weight loss through lifestyle modification significantly reduces
features of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Gastroenterology. 149(2). pp.367-378.