Module 1: Acute and Chronic Ilnesses Flashcards
Why is the nurses knowledge of characteristic patterns of acute and chronic diseases critical?
developing their clinical reasoning skills
and in the provision of safe and effective care for patients.
What is acute illness and give eg?
Curable, relatively short, e.g. pneumonia, traumas, MI
What is chronic illness, give an example and what are it’s implications?
Long term (generally 3 months or longer), non-curable, often associated with disability, but not always
Implications:
- Learning to live with
- coming to terms with
- transforms identity
- changes role relationships
- disrupts the living of life
o Common chronic diseases: Cancer, COPD, cardiovascular, diabetes
- Can be communicable eg. Hep C, HIV
What is the nurses role and management and prevention of chronic disease?
· Across the lifespan
· Nursing assessment:
o First point of contact?
o Whole patient picture (family, sociocultural, socioeconomic, etc.)
o Patient-centred health education
o Advocacy
o Quality of life (research and practice)
What are the modifiable risk factors of chronic illness?
- smoking
- unhealthy diet
- physical inactivity
- overweight
- low income or disadvanataged groups
What are the non-modifiable risk factors of chronic illness?
- Gender
- Sex
- Genetics
- Race
What are the characteristic patterns of chronic illness?
- Involves various phases.
- Adherence is important.
- Snowball effect - complications that lead to other conditions.
- Person and family are all affected.
- Burden falls on family and person rather than HCPs.
- Management = fine tuning.
- Complex, requiring collaborative effort.
- Uncertain.
- Costly, challenging, and ethically troublesome.
What are the phases of Corbin and Strauss’ Illness Trajectory Model?
- Pretrajectory.
- Trajectory.
- Stable.
- Unstable.
- Acute.
- Crisis.
- Comeback.
- Downward.
- Dying.
How do nurses care for people living with chronic illness?
- Identify trajectory phase of patient and create nursing diagnosis.
- Establish goals.
- Plan to achieve desired outcomes.
- Identify factors that facilitate/hinder attainment of goals.
- Implement interventions.
- Evaluate effectiveness of interventions.
What is a chronic condition?
Health problems from disabilities or disease that require long-term care (over three months).
o A specific condition may be a result5 of illness, persistent communicable infectious disease, genetic factors, or injury.
o Management of such conditions includes learning to live with symptoms and/or disabilities and coming to terms with life changes brought about.
What variables are affected by adjustments to chronic conditions?
o Personality before the illness
o Unresolved anger or grief from the past (trauma)
o Suddenness, extent, and duration of lifestyle changes from illness
o Family and individual resources for dealing with stress
o Stages of the individual/family life cycle
o Previous experience with illness and crises
What are the risk factors for chronic conditions in Canada?
o Smoking
o Unhealthy diet
o Physical inactivity
o Overweight/obesity
Describe the PREJECTORY phase of Corbin and Strauss’s Chronic illness Trajectory model
- Genetic factors
- life circumstances, or
- behaviours…
that place an individual or community at risk for the development of a chronic condition.
Describe the TRAJECTORY ONSET phase of Corbin and Strauss’s Chronic illness Trajectory model
- Appearance of noticeable symptoms
includes period of diagnostic workup and announcement of diagnosis may be accompanies by biographic limbo as person begins to discover and cope with implications of the diagnosis.
Describe the STABLE phase of Corbin and Strauss’s Chronic illness Trajectory model
Illness course and symptoms are under control; biography and everyday life activities are being managed within limitations of illness; illness management centered in the home.
