Chronic Illnesses in Children and Their Effect on the Families
Approximately 10% to 15% of children under 18 years of age have a
chronic physical illness or condition and the number of children with
chronic conditions has increased substantially in recent decades. It
is obvious that chronic illnesses in children do have an immense
impact on the families of these children. There are many psychological
consequences for the sufferers, their siblings and their parents.
Firstly we start by briefly looking at other consequences apart from
the symptoms of their illnesses that the patients have to deal with.
Sean Phipps's research revealed a high occurrence of a repressive
adaptive style in children with cancer. To investigate whether
repressive adaptation in the population is premorbid or reactive,
adaptive styles were considered in children with cancer at the period
of diagnosis and at 6 months and 1 year after the diagnosis. Contrast
groups included healthy children and children with serious chronic
illnesses. At diagnosis children with chronic illnesses showed levels
of repressive adaptive style similar to the cancer group. These
results suggested a move towards repressiveness in reaction to the
diagnosis of chronic illnesses that is then kept constant over time.
Results also showed distress that the patients experienced due to
their illnesses. It is a given that patients would definitely
experience distress and also sometimes repression over their own
condition but what is not so obvious is the effect that it would have
on their siblings.
Barbara Leonard in 1983 conducted a study of 77 healthy siblings of
brothers and sisters w...
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In the textbook, Exceptional Learners: An Introduction to Special Education by Daniel Hallahan, James Kauffman, and Paige Pullen, chapter four discusses the parents and families of exceptional children. At first the chapter discusses the stages parents go through when they have a newborn that has a serious physical disability. The stages that the parents go through are shock, disruption, denial, sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, and adaption. The chapter then goes into talk about the support systems that parents need to have to keep their lives less stressful. The authors stated, “extended family members can often play a critical role in providing comfort and support to the immediate family” (Hallahan, Kauffman, Pullen, 2015, p. 69) Once the chapter talked about this they went into detail the factors that can cause stress for parents. After that the chapter talks about the siblings reactions to their
He is perhaps the posterchild for stress. Stuck at a dead-end job, longing for freedom, but unable to do so because he is the main caregiver for his brother, he does a remarkable job of showing patience when dealing with a developmentally disabled person. However, as a stressed out individual, his relationships tend to suffer, as he is riddled with frustration and thinks very negatively about himself. As the primary caregiver for his younger sibling, this is to be expected. Caregivers of physically or mentally disabled family members are at risk for chronic stress. Spouses who care for a disabled partner are particularly vulnerable to a range of stress-related health threats, including influenza, depression, and heart disease. Caring for a spouse who has even minor disabilities can lead to severe stress (Harvey
Mental illness can have a tremendous effect on not only the individual suffering, but to their family. "Mental illness often has a ‘ripple effect’ on families, creating tension, uncertainty, troubled emotions and big changes in how people live their lives" ("Families and friends"). A family member who suffers from a mental illness can have a great impact on numerous physical, psychological and social aspects of the family. Creating nursing priorities can help to create developmental and behavioral functions of a family to help the family bond and cope with a mental illness. The film “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” by Lasse Hallstrom, portrays a family who struggle to cope with the enormous impact that a mentally challenged child “Arnie” can have on a family. Although the whole family is involved in Arnie’s care, it is clear that Gilbert, Arnie’s older brother, takes on the primary giver role. Throughout the movie, many scenes tend to dramatically show the amount of stress, frustration, aggression, and separation on the family that is ultimately created from Arnies mental illness. In this paper we are going to discuss the impact of chronic illness on the grape family, two family centered priorities we have chosen using the Calgary Family Assessment Model and one nursing intervention for each priority using the Calgary Family Intervention Model.
The medical family therapist assigned to our family when my father became ill suddenly a few years ago was a gift from God. The therapist helped not only my father however, she helped our family understand the severity of my Dad’s condition. My father had a tumor pressing down on his spinal cord which slowly started affecting his balance then eventually his ability to walk. My father before this condition probably never missed a day of work unless he scheduled it off. Furthermore, my Dad was involved in many different activities, and on the board of directors for our church and his local union. When this illness occurred the doctor immediately suggested sitting down with a counselor to discuss my father’s limitation, and the next course of
Chronic illness or chronic condition is a long lasting or persistent disease or condition in a person’s health. A chronic illness can affect anyone’s life at any time. A person’s life can be affected greatly in many ways by a chronic illness. A person may be affected physically, their independence may be taken away, they may feel tired and/or in pain due to a chronic illness they may be suffering from. Financial problems may occur due to the high medical costs treating the chronic illness, someone could lose their, job, their appearance may be affected, and a person may experience confusion. If a chronic illness unexpectedly approaches someone’s life, a person may feel overwhelmingly confused. This confusion may come, because they don’t understand why they now have this illness. This confusion is primarily seen in children. Since chronic illness affects lives so greatly, a person may start to feel anger, stress, or anxiety because of the interruption of the chronic illness in a person’s life.
In the book Stones by William Bell it is tells a story on prejudice, the supernatural, history, it’s continuous cycle of racism, and labelling. One of the most underlying themes in the novel is Parent-Youth Relationships. Majority of the book touches base on the two main characters; Garnet Havelock and Raphella Skye’s dysfunction within both their families, the main relationships are Garnet & his Mom, Garnet & his Dad, and Raphella and her Mom. The relationship between Garnet and his Mom is offbeat because they are neither close and neither distant from each other, they have each other best interest but aren’t best friends. Garnet and
Some of the biggest obstacles patients with a life-altering illness deal with are: (1) The stigma of the disease (2) Lack of adequate family support (3) The impact of the disease on themselves and their family (4) Lack of adequate resources (Rober...
It is very common for people to underestimate the importance of the developmental milestones that a human being completes throughout a lifespan. The way a newborn is looked after in it’s mothers womb, followed by its birthing and by the taking care processes during its first few years of life, determines the way a child will be able to achieve and complete the so called developmental milestones, also known as the stages of development. Anything varying from an accidental teratogen intake or several prolonged extra minutes, or even just seconds, without oxygen during birth, can cause life long developmental damages, including both cognitive and/or physical. How do parents of children afflicted with these disabilities work through the growth and development of their child, knowing that their life, both the parents and the kids’, will forever be impacted by such a seemingly small and insignificant event? How do the second-born children learn to interact, and in a way accept and look past the differences of their siblings? This paper will focus on discussing the effects that children with mental retardation and learning disabilities have on their family’s adaption to their unique approach at the developmental stages. Those above are both questions that will be considered throughout this paper via the aid of personal anecdotes from my family and individual experiences with my brother, and several other papers that reported the results from different related studies.
According to Aberth, "disease is a constant force in human history that has had much more than just demographic repercussions"(Aberth 2007, Pg.X). It has created fear, awareness, pain and frustration for the lack of knowledge of it cause. In 1500 through the 20th century, the primary reasons for disease to spread so effectively are animals, trade routes and colonization/ imperialism. The disease was widely spread through warm climate and the geographic of the world because the virus host bacteria was able to grow and attack the human body.
The uncertain nature of chronic illness takes many forms, but all are long-term and cannot be cured. The nature of chronic illness raises hesitation. It can disturb anyone, irrespective of demographics or traditions. It fluctuates lives and generates various inquiries for the patient. Chronic illness few clear features involve: long-lasting; can be managed but not cured; impacts quality of life; and contribute to stress. Chronic illnesses can be enigmatic. They often take considerable time to identify, they are imperceptible and often carry a stigma because there is little sympathetic or social support. Many patients receive inconsistent diagnoses at first and treatments deviate on an individual level. Nevertheless, some circumstances require
Depression is a mood disorder causing a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. The cause of depression is not always chemical imbalances. It is a more complex disorder, where individuals do not understand the disease have to consider depression could be from a medical condition, trauma, life circumstances, and genetic vulnerability.
In this paper, I will be discussing my family health history as illustrated in the disease family tree. What is family health history? Family health history refers to a collection of information about diseases that run in your family, as well as the eating habits, activities, and environments that your family shares. The knowledge about diseases in your family can help you make healthy choices. One’s family history can affect one’s health in different ways since we inherit many things from our parents and grandparents; genes passed on to you from your parents can determine your health. Some genes can increase one’s chances of developing certain diseases but it can also depend on the type of environment, life style or behavior, geographical
Marriage has always been, and remains, one of Canada's most important social structures. Yet more and more marriages are ending in divorce. Canada's divorce rate is currently about fifty percent. Half of all children will witness the break up of their parents' marriage. Of these children, another half will witness the break up of a parents' second marriage, as well. (Furstenberg, Nord).
Health psychology is a relatively new concept rapidly growing and could be defined as the biological and psychological influences affect ones behaviour also bringing in social influences of health and illness (MacDonald, 2013). Biological determinants consider genetic and biological factors of an illness whereas psychological determinants focus on the psychological factors such as why people behave the way they do when dealing with issues such as anxiety and stress. Models such as the Health Belief Model and Locus of Control were developed in attempt to try and explain psychological issues around a chronic illness such as breast cancer (Ogden, 2012). Sociological factors can cause an enormous amount of pressure for one to behave in a certain way for example gender roles in society and religious considerations when dealing with health beliefs. Health Beliefs can be defined as one’s own perception to their own personal health and illness and health behaviours (Ogden, 2012). There are also theories and models used to explain pain and coping with diagnosis such as Moos and Schaefer (1984) Crisis theory and Shontz (1975) cycle of grief people go through when being diagnosed with a serious illness.
Dr. Mishel’s model describes the concepts as: “stimuli frame”, “cognitive capacities”, and “structure providers”, (Mishel, p.225, 1988). The first concept, stimuli frame, refers to the form, composition and structure of the stimuli that the person perceives and is composed of three components: symptom pattern, event familiarity and event congruency (McEwen & Wills, p.243, 2014). Here we examine the consistency of symptoms, regularity of occurrence and the consistence between what is expected and experienced. According to Mishel, the next two concepts, cognitive capacities and structure providers, influence the stimuli frame. When dealing with illness, there is often times an abundance of information being shared with the ill and those affected. At a certain point, individuals can become overload with information and reach their cognitive capacity, causing a decreased in the amount of information that can be processed, directly effecting the stimuli frame. Next, structure providers, are those ‘pillars’ in an individual’s health journey that provide education to enhance a person’s knowledge base, provide social support (friends, family, or spiritual support) and provide credible authority (knowledgeable, trustworthy healthcare personnel, such as doctors and nurses). Other concepts include appraisal, inference (danger or opportunity), illusion and coping mechanisms”