Examples Of Health Promotion

Health Promotion
For the purpose of this paper I will be identifying a chronic illness that might affect a patient in my practice. There are many chronic illnesses that can affect people, examples are heart disease, arthritis and type 2 diabetes. Many chronic illnesses are very preventable and with the proper health care guidance chronic illnesses can be avoided. For this paper I am choosing type 2 diabetes to provide health promotions for. According to the Center for Disease Control diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, amputations, and new cases of blindness (Center for Disease Control [CDC], 2017). Type 2 diabetes is a very preventable chronic illness and according to Steven et al. (2016), it is potentially, a reversible condition

According to an article published in Diabetes Care, timely care, evidence based practices, and collaborating with patients and family are recommended for better diabetes management outcomes. Patients with diabetes type 2 need to be educated on the importance of managing their disease and the education needs to be structured and included any family that may care for the patient with diabetes. Patients need to be taught when and how to monitor their blood glucose levels, types of insulin, and dosages of insulin. Family needs to be included as well, especially if a family member is the one doing the monitoring or administering any insulin. As a nurse, I have had to educate patients newly diagnosed with diabetes and family members when, why and how to monitor blood sugar and what the target range is for blood glucose numbers. I have also had to educate patients and family on insulin whether it was oral medication or subcutaneous insulin injections. In my experiences, I have usually done demonstrations of glucose monitoring for the patient, given literature on diabetes management and then had the patient or family member do return demonstration. I have also taken this approach in regards to injectable insulin. In addition, when family is involved, I feel it is very important to make sure family understands the signs, symptoms and treatments for hypoglycemia and

Again, the family needs to be included in these dietary modifications. Family will also need to be on board and help the patient to make changes. Often time’s family will either enable a patient or simply turn a blind eye to choices a patient is making. For example, I had a patient who was obese and had diabetes type 2 among other health issues, but the patient’s wife would continue to bring this patient fast food or cakes and cookies when she came to visit. The wife was also obese and did not see what was wrong with the patient having food she brought him, she knew the patient liked this food, so in her eyes she was doing something to make the patient happy. As a health care team, including the physician, dietician, physical therapy, nursing, and social worker, we were able to collectively educate this family on the reasoning behind why, not only the patient, but the family needed to be held responsible for their actions and make healthy changes. Slowly, the wife stopped bringing fast foods and baked goods and would bring mixed nuts or string cheese. The patient and family were also able to verbally identify healthy food choices for people with type 2