Unhealthy Eating Care Plan - Essay Example

Case Plan Case Plan Introduction (purpose of the case plan) In my work as a dietician, I work with men and boys wit lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart diseases. My work entails counselling my clients with the aim of getting them to change their diets in a manner that will alleviate their diseases and prevent them from contracting other lifestyle diseases. Recently, I encountered a client whose lifestyle disease required them to quit their current eating habits and adopt healthy ones. When the need for this change was discussed with them, the client became unruly and uncooperative, even going to the extent of vowing that they would rather die than stop their current diet and quit drinking. This is the basis of this case plan. The purpose of the plan is to move the client to the point where they recognize the need to change their unhealthy eating and drinking habits for their benefit. The issue One of the best ways of treating lifestyle diseases is for the patient to abandon their unhealthy way of life that led to or worsens the effects of the diseases. In the case of the patient that is the subject of this plan, it was established that their lifestyle disease is attributable to their eating fatty, junk foods and heavy drinking. When advised to quit that lifestyle in favour of a healthy one, they protested bitterly to the point of claiming that they rather die and stop eating junk food and drinking. Two possibilities arise. Either the patient does not understand and appreciate the contribution of their lifestyle to their disease or they do, but there are certain forces that drive them to refuse to cooperate with the dietician. Either way, the task ahead is to get the patient to cooperate with the dietician for the sake of their health. However, the patient has made it clear that they will not cooperate with the dietician. Thus, it may be necessary to enlist the help of a third party. Arguably, this is the best and first third party to approach the patient’s immediate family, if they had one. The fact that the client leaves alone further complicates the situation. Functional families are known to offer the highest moral, emotional, psychological and other forms of support in difficult moments such as when a member of the family suffers from a life-threatening disease or condition. The effective treatment of a lifestyle disease or any other disease takes the joint effort of both the patient and the health practitioner (Malcher, 2009). Otherwise, left to one party, the process of administering treatment is an exercise in futility. Suppose a patient visits a doctor and the doctor, having diagnosed a disease, prescribes the necessary medication. A patient can opt to do either of two things: get the drugs and take them as per the doctors prescription or ignore the doctor altogether. Should the patient elect the second option, it is unlikely they will get well. Factors Contributing to the Problem Several factors may have led to the patients behaviour. First, the fact that the man has no family and leaves alone could be an indicator of a bigger, more serious problem. Being the basic unit of a society, the family provides the first and possibly most trusted, layer of support. Ordinarily, a person will seek support from elsewhere only after they have exhausted the options available in the family setting. However, this statement only applies to functional families that are founded on authentic love. Still, the patients heavy drinking could be a sign of a bigger, hidden problem. Some people, when faced with problems, are known to seek solace in alcohol. The new environment in the patient finds themselves is also likely to have contributed to their unruly behaviour. Research has shown that when a man first encounters a new program, their impression of the immediate environment and that of the staff heavily influence their level of trust, hence their level of obedience(King , Sweeny, & Fletcher, 2004). When they enter new situations, men are suspicious of what is expected of them and depend on visual cues to calm down. It is possible that when they first visited the premises of the dietician, the patient got the wrong impression of supportiveness. Consequently, they reacted by acting tough. The patients upbringing is likely to have played a part in their behaviour. Research has demonstrated that children that are brought up in the presence of a dominant father or father figure such as an uncle are more likely to submit to authorities than those raised without a dominant father or father figure (Fletcher, 2008). In a way, the dietician is an authority, at least in matters diet. For the patient to disobey the dietician, it is possible that they were raised in a single-mother family. Either that or, while there was a father in the family, they were absent most of the time. Possible Positive Outcomes From this case plan, three positive outcomes are expected, namely that the patient will cooperate with the dietician, as result of their cooperation the patient will get healed of their lifestyle disease and the lessons learned from this case will be applied to similar clients in the future(White, Cash, Conrad, & Branney, 2008). About the first outcome, the basic goal of this plan is to secure the cooperation of the patient. Their cooperation is paramount because, as already seen, both the client and the dietician have a role to play in freeing the former from their lifestyle disease. Winning the cooperation of the client, however, is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to an end: total healing. It is unlikely that the client behaves the way they do because they enjoy living with the disease. On the contrary, virtually everyone desires good health and the subject of this plan is no exception. Probably, there are certain hidden forces that drive them to act the way they do. In fact, it is likely that these forces are unknown to them. Nonetheless, the goal of this plan is to overcome these forces and ensure the healing of the client. The success of this plan on the patient will be replicated in the future when dealing with similar clients. Efforts might even be made to get other dieticians to embrace the successful aspects of the plan while encouraging them to suggest ways of making the plan an industry standard for dealing with patients of lifestyle diseases who, for one reason or another, are reluctant of dropping their poor lifestyles in favour of healthier ones. Strategies to Achieve these Outcomes The above goals will be realized by the dietician employing the strategy of patient-centeredness (Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert, & Warin, 2008). This approach requires the dietician to be mindful of the patient’s understanding and past experiences and responsive to their needs. The strategy demands effective communication between the dietician and their client. Also, the strategy has five dimensions: embracing a bio-psychosocial viewpoint, seeing the patient as a person, seeing the doctor as person, power and responsibility sharing and perceiving consultations as a partnership between the doctor and the patient. Two of these will be explained in some detail. If this plan is to succeed, the dietician and the patient will have to see each other as an individual first. This will require that the two parties strike a rapport so that the dietician sees and appreciates the patient as a human being, not a drunk with an unhealthy way of life. Conversely, the patient will have to see in the doctor an individual with shortcomings like everyone else, not an expert who knows it all with ready solutions to their (the patient’s) problems. In addition, it will be necessary for the doctor and the patient to view each other as an equal partner in a partnership that is the healing process (Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert, & Warin, 2008). As equal partners, each party has responsibilities to discharge and rights to enjoy. For instance, the patient should be allowed to request a rescheduling of a consultation meeting if for genuine reasons they cannot make it to one scheduled earlier. On their part, if the dietician must cancel or postpone the meeting, they have a duty to notify the patient in advance. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Plan The biggest strength of the plan is that it is centred on the client, not the practitioner (Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert, & Warin, 2008). It sees the client as a valuable resource as opposed to a mere consumer of health services. For instance, the patient has past experiences, not necessarily with a dietician, but with other general practitioners. Based on these experiences, they have some expectations from their engagement with the dietician. Moreover, the plan also focuses on the needs of the patient. All these features of the plan put the patient in control of their healing process. The work of the dietician is to guide the patient. Putting control in the hands of the patient increases their active participation in the healing process. Hence, faster results. Strength of the plan is that it recognizes the role of communication in the therapeutic process (Smith, Braunack-Mayer, Wittert, & Warin, 2008). It is likely that the patient’s rebellion stemmed out of unmet expectations. The client may expect the dietician to prescribe pills that could cure the client’s diseases even when they continued with their lifestyle of eating fatty foods with no fruits and vegetables and drinking heavily. So, when they finally found out that they were going to part with the things they held dear, they reacted with rebellion. In recognition of the significance of communication, both the client and the practitioner will sit down and start with the basics such as each party explaining their expectations of the process. The main weakness of this plan is that it does not factor in that other than their lifestyle diseases, the patient has another serious problem that must first be resolved: alcoholism. Because the dietician has neither the skills nor capacity required to treat alcoholism, they will have to liaise with an organization that rehabilitates people who are addicted to alcohol. Even after finding the rehabilitation facility, the challenge remains of convincing the client to join the facility. Should they be convinced to join, another question persists of whether or not they will be able and willing to pay (Malcher, 2009). This latter question would have been resolved if the man had a family. The cumulative effect of this shortcoming is that it will derail the therapeutic. Another shortcoming of this plan is that it brings together two parties that already perceive each other negatively. For this reason, restoring a good working relationship between will be a daunting task. In order to overcome this challenge, the dietician will engage the services of a fellow dietician. If need be dietician will withdraw completely to enable the new dietician to take charge of the entire process. My Reflections In my practice as a dietician for men and boys, I have come to learn many lessons. Two of these stand out. The first one is that contrary to popular opinion, men are just as concerned of their health as women are. The only major difference between men and women is that whereas women seek health attention at the earliest signs of unwellness, men and will tend to delay seeking medical health until they are convinced reasonably enough that the situation is dire. Some of the reasons men cite for delay action is that by the time they leave work, most facilities are closed. The authority of this claim is questionable, however, given that many health facilities in most Australian cities and towns work beyond ordinary working hours. Besides, increasingly more and more are working toward twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I have also learned that every individual is different from the other. This implies that a blanket manner of handling clients cannot work in medical practice. Instead, the practitioner must strive to understand their client as an individual, together with their needs and expectations. This is where the client-centred technique of rendering care applies (Smith J., 2004). This approach focuses on the client as the epicentre of the therapeutic process. It sees them as a resource as opposed to a burden to the practitioner. Works cited Fletcher, R. (2008). Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse. Melbourne: Commonwealth of Australia. King, A., Sweeny, S., & Fletcher, R. (2004). Checklist for Organizations Working with Men. Developing Practice 11, 55-66. Malcher, G. (2009). Engaging men in healthcare. Australian Family Physician, 92-95. Smith, J. (2004). Adolescent Males View on the Use of Mental Health Counselling Services. Adolescence, 77-82. Smith, J., Braunack-Mayer, A., Wittert, G., & Warin, M. (2008). Qualities men value when communicating with general practitioners: implications for primary care settings. Medical Journal of Australia, 618-621. White, A., Cash, K., Conrad, D., & Branney, P. (2008). The Bradford and Airedale Health of Men Initiative: A study of its effectiveness in engaging with men. Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University. Read More