Schizophrenia Essay: Alison Fernandes' Case And Care Coordination Process.

The Case Of Alison Fernandes

Schizophrenia is a severe and chronic mental disorder that has a debilitating and severe effect on a person’s psychology. It detaches the person suffering from the disorder from people in the surrounding and makes the person mentally vulnerable to the environment. The patients of this disorder, have an abnormal psychotic behavior that is, they see things which are non- existing, they have high levels of delusion and varied thought disorders like dysfunctional thinking process, they have lessened levels of feelings and stop communicating with even the near and dear ones (Warner, 2013). The condition is yet under research and total recovery from the ailment is yet not possible.

The discussion under report emphasizes on studying the case of a patient named Alison Fernandes, he suffered the condition of schizophrenia at the age of 19 years.

The discussion also elaborates the measures that have to be taken by the caregivers and the family members of the patient to have a smooth recovery process. It also deduces the ways in which such mental health conditions should be handled by the professionals.

Alison was a teenager boy who was 19 years old, he has been suffering from several mental ailments since. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia after a long time since the occurrence of the disorders. Several symptoms that Alison was suffering from, lead to the diagnosis of the condition. Alison had a medical history of prolonged depression, it started when he was in the high school and prevailed after the initiation. In the University, he started to get an insight about his mental disorder after attending a counselling session with a psychiatrist in the University. The additive symptoms that he had include suicidal tendency, high anxiety levels, day dreaming and sleeping for all day long. The depression that he was suffering from a long time prevailed but was under control by the administration of certain moderate drugs and supplements. The condition started relapsing after he graduated, the state of his mind worsened during this period a he started witnessing figures in front of him, he was always agitated by the presence unknown noises around his vicinity. These reasons made him visit a psychiatrist, several neurological tests and counselling sessions on him lead to the diagnosis of the mental disorder of schizophrenia.

The patients of schizophrenia as can be seen in the case of Alison, have high levels of delusion and hallucination. They need to be handled with more sophistication and patience than the patients suffering from physical ailments. The need to assist them for betterment of their conditions requires a long period of time (Searles, 2012). The care giving process are generally intricate as the patients dwell in a non- existing world.

Development Of Care Coordination Process For The Patients Of Schizophrenia

Development of a framework to assist the patient of serious mental disorders, lessens the time required in the coordination process, the framework should have the involvement of the practitioners, caregivers and other related clinicians. The process has to be assisted by senior practitioners, to avoid redundancy in the scenario.

The coordination process requires positive interactions between the clinicians, the patient and the family members. Different patients have different behavioral aspects, while interacting the caregivers should be patient enough to handle all circumstances irrespective of the behavioral attributes of the sufferer (Boyle, 2014). The families of the patient should also be briefed about the patient’s condition and how the situation can be managed at home because the members of the family are the ones who are going to take care of the patient when discharged.

The mental health patients like Alison need the presence of the physicians from different genres. The patients require the presence of psychiatrist, psychologist and general physicians. The presence of a psychiatrist is the primary requirement for the patients of mental illnesses, the treatment has to be prescribed by the psychiatrist. The involvement of a psychologist is also necessary for making the patient attend the counselling sessions that are required for making them undergo therapies that are beneficial for them. General physicians are also involved in such cases as the sufferers of schizophrenia deal with physical ailments as a side effect of the mental condition (Lieberman & Murray, 2016).

The patients with schizophrenia like Alison are prescribed and administered neurological drugs for their treatment by the psychiatrists, the consumption of the medicines and drugs at the right time should be taken under consideration majorly, by the caregivers of the patient, as the patients have a tendency of skipping the intake of drugs (Smith et al., 2013). The neurological drugs have severe side effects associated with them, if not administered as the prescribed dosages, hence the primary duty of the caregiver includes keeping the medications under check (Dixon et al., 2015).

Involving the patients in the recovery process by encouraging them to have a better life, minimizes the work of the caregivers (Bentall, 2013). Orientation process in case of schizophrenia patients is essential, the frequent hallucination that occur, disorient the sufferers, they should be reoriented by making them understand that the visuals and screams that they encounter are unreal but can be corrected.  

Attendance of the patients to the therapy and counselling sessions is also essential for the improvement of the patient’s condition (Vancampfort et al., 2012). The caregivers should pay heed to the necessity of the patient’s attendance to the sessions and work according in giving the patients enthusiasm to be present in such sessions.

Importance Of Presence The Of Multidisciplinary Practitioner And Clinicians In The Caregiving Process

The patients who are under the influence of drugs and alcohols are much more vulnerable to deterioration of their situation. The caregivers of such patients have an additional crisis to take care of. The situation should be analyzed by the professional and checked if the patient is in immediate risk (Wiltlink et al., 2015). The rehabilitation process should be assisted of the caregivers by keeping track on the behavior of the patient, the patients dealing such crisis have higher levels of symptoms than the other patients, they indulge themselves in self harm, suicidal tendency is higher and elevated levels of the other symptoms. With the decrease in the crisis, patient should also visit psychologist to eradicate the crisis in totality.

Attending the patients of any mental illness is in itself a huge challenge to the caregivers, the addition of complexity based on the cultural and ethnic aspects of the patients, create intricate situation in front of the caregivers (Betancourt et al., 2016). In the present day, the population of people of different ethnicity is increasing as a consequence of globalization, it needs the caregivers to be culturally competent and attend to the patients according to their necessity. Cultural competency minimizes the coordination problems faced by the nurses because of communication problems. The healthcare centers should incorporate several seminars and training sessions for the clinicians involved in the set ups to commemorate the cultural needs of the patients of different background.

Conclusion:

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that schizophrenia is a major mental illness and the recovery process is a crucial one. The involvement of the health professionals, requires proper coordination between them. Inculcation of frameworks in the setups decreases the problem associated with dealing with a mental illness patient. The involvement of multidisciplinary practitioners in a planned manner helps the patient to cope up with the situation. The caregiving process for the patients of schizophrenia should be planned and culminated by the caregiver by caring on the basis of evidences.

References:

Bentall, R. P. (Ed.). (2013). Reconstructing schizophrenia. Routledge.

Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016). Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public health reports.

Boyle, M. (2014). Schizophrenia: A scientific delusion?. Routledge.

Dixon, L. B., Goldman, H. H., Bennett, M. E., Wang, Y., McNamara, K. A., Mendon, S. J., ... & Essock, S. M. (2015). Implementing coordinated specialty care for early psychosis: the RAISE Connection Program. Psychiatric Services, 66(7), 691-698.

Lieberman, J. A., & Murray, R. M. (Eds.). (2012). Comprehensive care of schizophrenia: A textbook of clinical management. Oxford University Press.

Searles, H. F. (2012). Collected papers on schizophrenia and related subjects. Karnac Books.

Smith, D. J., Langan, J., McLean, G., Guthrie, B., & Mercer, S. W. (2013). Schizophrenia is associated with excess multiple physical-health comorbidities but low levels of recorded cardiovascular disease in primary care: cross-sectional study. BMJ open, 3(4), e002808.

Vancampfort, D., Probst, M., Helvik Skjaerven, L., Catalán-Matamoros, D., Lundvik-Gyllensten, A., Gómez-Conesa, A., ... & De Hert, M. (2012). Systematic review of the benefits of physical therapy within a multidisciplinary care approach for people with schizophrenia. Physical therapy, 92(1), 11-23.

Warner, R. (2013). Recovery from schizophrenia: Psychiatry and political economy. Routledge.

Wiltink, S., Velthorst, E., Nelson, B., McGorry, P. M., & Yung, A. R. (2015). Declining transition rates to psychosis: the contribution of potential changes in referral pathways to an ultra–high?risk service. Early intervention in psychiatry, 9(3), 200-206.