The health-illness continuum is a graphical illustration based on the concept of human wellbeing as a whole mental and emotional (Falvo and Holland, 2017). At times, people might not show any physical symptoms of the disease but still be depressed, anxious, and unhappy and continuously complain of not feeling well and can affect the wellness of the person.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
The concept of the health-illness continuum:
The definition of wellness varies from person to person. Some think wellness to be the opposite of illness. To them, if they don’t have any physical illness, they are well. Some are always motivated to be active for a healthy lifestyle. The rest consists of some person who is either satisfied or dissatisfied with their current condition.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
Figure: 1- graphical representation of the health-illness continuum.
The right side shows the degrees or levels of wellness, and the left side shows the degrees of illness.
The continuum states that wellness or wellbeing is dynamic and not static. It must move the patient to greater health and welfare. A person’s outlook also contributes to the state of wellness. The positive vision of a person having any disability or disease would face the right side of the continuum in contrast to a fit person who is unhappy in life and is always complaining, depressed, and anxious. This outlook is negative, and it hinders the growth of mental and emotional wellbeing whereas the positive outlook influences mental and emotional wellness to growth, awareness, and knowledge.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
Importance of the perspective in caring for the patients:
This perfective is important in treating patients with hope as it contributes to the mental and emotional development of the person. With this view, the patients can be motivated to have better health and prevent any physical and emotional disease by measuring in which scale the patient lies in the continuum. It also estimates the development made by them.
Healthy eating, workout, exercises and our activities contribute to the wellness of our daily lifestyle. What I eat and what my actions are, together joins in the development of my physical, emotional and mental development. I am a 26years old, 5′ with a BMI of 28. I am overweight and obese. Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.I have PCOS that is contributing more to my health issues. Due to being overweight, I have constant pain in the bones of my heel and can’t stand for a longer time. A person who experiences PCOD has a lot of difficulty in losing weight. I consume Australian cuisine, mainly having nuts, milk and protein, and some vegetables. I walk for 45mins every day and go to the gym thrice a week. There are no current changes in my weight. Sometimes it reduces a little and again hits back.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
I believe my condition can only be improved with proper knowledge and hence, after doing my graduation, I have allotted myself in a Degree Nurse Program. This would provide me with all the clinical measures that can be taken to improve my condition and help to improve.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
With proper knowledge, effort and hope of being a better version of myself, I believe nothing is impossible to achieve in my career and lifestyle. I am motivated to improve my condition for two reasons. Firstly my health issues would no longer persist and would help me get a better and healthier lifestyle. Secondly, I want to motivate my family and the people around me that with hard work, nothing is incurable or impossible.Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
Future goal:
My ultimate goal is to improve health and move towards the eventual mental and emotional development and make it stable. My educators in the Grand Canyon University is helping a lot by providing proper knowledge and information for being a better nurse and a better thinker, and my nurse educator of the Pioneer Healthcare Services guides me in being a professional nurse in clinical settings from a nursing student (Kaakinen et al. 2018).Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum.
Reflection of each person on the health-illness continuum is different depending upon their personal experience.
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