Disability And Chronic Illness In Nursing Essay

Disability And Chronic Illness In Nursing - Essay Example (A Beautiful Mind: 21-3-2005). Taking Melissa's case, lets discuss the various aspects of chronic illnesses. Chronic pain is not very responsive to narcotics and analgesics; it is more restrictive to different therapies of pain. Only a few patients can define an injury or pain as the cause of the illness, which is much lesser than the psychological feelings of depression and trauma, which such patients undergo. All these side effects may be the main cause for the chronic pain. (T.J. Murray, Chronic Pain Study). Chronic pain is an important social and medical problem for many reasons. It is very distressing to patients, as it affects their life and even their employment, and not very responsive to treatment. Chronic pain is associated with large financial, as in the case of Melissa, who did not get any sort of compensation or insurance for her treatment. In spite of its regularity and large costs, it becomes very difficult to understand and manage a patient, and ultimately becomes a cause of stress and confusion to everyone concerned with the patient. Chronic pain becomes the main cause of irritation for everyone - the patient, his or her family and friends, the employers, the insurance and payment agencies, and their physicians. As the patients don't respond to treatment, the physicians try to find a cause for the illness. Annually around billion dolla... percent of all pain patients go on to become chronic, the chronic pain patients come up to around more than half of the total cost of compensation for the pain, and stand for an rising group of very distraught and suffering people. (T.J. Murray, Chronic Pain Study). It is very difficult to understand and assess people with chronic illness, and difficult to fairly take care and compensate such people. The patient can only experience the pain in such chronic illnesses, it is difficult for anybody to assess the pain, an outsider can only experience it, as the patient says the pain is there. Chronic pain is defined as constant pain for more than 6 months when normal healing should have been expected. Some of the steps, which can be taken to ensure better care for chronic patients, are Recognition of the emotional, physical, behavioral and psychological factors involved in patients with chronic pain. Educating physicians, nurses and other health care professional of the nature and management of patients with chronic pain. Adopting a proper rehabilitation program for chronic pain like, better care for trauma and pain, recognizing the characteristics and behavior of pain, stressing the need for improved activity and physical movement, even in the case of pain, accepting the aim to return to work early. (T.J. Murray, Chronic Pain Study). Apart from the illness, people like Melissa have to face the social stigma, associated to such disabilities. Scholars of the disability policy describe four different models of disability: A right model of disability which considers disability as the outcome of a sin, a medical model of disability which considers disability as a fault or sickness, which can be cured by medicines, a rehabilitation model, an outcome of the medical model,