Family With Chronic Illness

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Chronic Illness Each child will probably have many different kind of health issue during his or her infancy or childhood. In addition, for some children these illnesses are mild, they come and go, and they do not have negative influence on their everyday life and development. On the other hand, for some children, there are some chronic illnesses that have a huge effect on their daily life during childhood. Indeed, a chronic health condition is a health issue that last more than 3 months, and it has a big effect on on a child’s daily life, activity, and development. As a result, it demands more hospitalizations, extensive medical care, emergency care, and/or home health care. According to Weiner, “Each year in the US, 6 million children ranging …show more content…

Also, the whole family needs to come to term with the health condition, make change in priorities and schedule, and keep the family. For example, it can be much more stressful for a young or a newly married couple because they may have more experience to overcome life's difficulties. As a result, as with individual maturation, family development can be delayed or even revert to a previous level of functioning (Hockenberry, p 762.) Therefore, health care providers need to apply family development theory while planning care for a child and family with chronic health condition. Indeed, family centered care should be a part of that intervention. Parents and family members have huge and comprehensive caregiving responsibilities for their chronically ill child at home or at hospital. Moreover, the main goal taking care of chronic ill child is to “minimize the progression of the disease and maximize the child’s physical, cognitive, psychological potential” (Hockenberry, p 763). Therefore, it is essential to family being part of the child care to give highest quality of care. On the other hand, we are as a part of the health care provider need to give attention to all …show more content…

In addition, one of them was 10 year old girl, who was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Patient was a young girl, from different culture and religion, and parents had language barrier; however, while taking care of the child, I could see that family had really good interaction with each other. Parents were at bedside all the time, and they were very supportive and attentive. Patient and family did well with diabetic care. The mother was participated in cares and eager to learn. Moreover, to provide highest quality of care, nurses did a lot of great job. They provided information about the child’s chronic illness and taught about insulin administration. Consequently, from caring that patient I understood that most important nursing interventions are to assess patient's ability to copy with new life and role change, patient’s reaction to chronic illness, support system, cultural issues, and available

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