What is Chronic Disease?

Chronic Disease Prevention And Management Among The Chronic Disease Patients And Patients’ Relatives In Australia

A chronic disease is one that lasts for more than three months. It is basically a health condition that is meant to last for a long period of time or a disease whose effects appear periodically (Bynum, 2015). A chronic disease cannot be cured with the use of vaccines or other related medications. In addition to that, a chronic disease does not appear anyhow but caused by various aspects in a person’s lifestyle. For instance, lack of body exercise, poor eating choices and unhealthy lifestyles among others (Pedersen and Saltin, 2015). Examples of chronic disease include diseases like arthritis, stroke, diabetes, obesity, cancer, asthma, heart disease to name a few. The fact that these diseases cannot be cured with the use of any vaccine or any other medication means that the diseases must be managed to increase the lifespan of the people suffering from these kinds of diseases. By managing the disease itself as well as their conditions, will increase the probabilities of curing the disease (Greenberg et al, 2011). Research has shown that these disease are can be found in any age group, i.e. whether young or old or aged people of the community. This group of community member are said to have poor or low immunity system, poor eating habits and low body strength hence giving a chance for the uprising of such disease and health conditions.

Chronic disease management refers to the application of knowledge, skills, expertise and experience towards the support and care for the people suffering from chronic disease conditions. Through the management of these chronic disease conditions, these patients are able to earn new ways to care for themselves with the aim of improving their health itself and generally (Martin, 2007). The support and care needed for such kind of patients involve conducting activities like regular visits, regular body and health checkups as well as observations. It is important to note that, chronic disease management is supposed to be a process to be conducted by specialists or professionals who have experience and expertise on these kind of fields, e.g. registered nurses and specialist doctors (Landon et al, 2007). In addition to that, the patients can be helped by the family physicians and other primary care givers to manage these kinds of diseases. Just as mentioned earlier, management of these diseases increases the life span of the patient besides improving their entire health condition. This project will focus on discussing chronic disease management among the old or aged in the Australia community.

• To identify various ways to prevent and manage chronic diseases in the community
• To identify and evaluate different causes of the most common chronic diseases

Chronic Disease Management

The project will focus on the different techniques and methods to implement when it comes to prevention and management of chronic diseases common in Australia or rather the Australiancitizens. Through this project, the team members will be able to identify the most common types of chronic disease affecting and being experienced by the Australiancitizens as well as identify various ways of preventing and managing each one of them. Additionally, once the project is complete, the Australian citizens will have gained immense knowledge on the best and most effective ways to prevent and manage certain specific common chronic diseases which is a basic way to develop and improve community development in terms of health.

Chronic diseases have recently become one of the largest contributor and cause of death among the generation of today. Besides being long term health conditions, they cause other health problems or rather conditions. However, these disease have causes and prevention methods or techniques that are used to help manage these diseases (Sturmberg and Martin, 2007) Additionally, it is important to note that these methods and techniques are more effective when they are carried out or rather implemented by a professional or specialist e.g. registered nurses or doctors. This is simply because these parties are the ones trained, skilled and with the required knowledge to handle such kinds of disease management issues.

Lack of body exercise

This is the major cause for most chronic diseases in the modern world. Body exercise involves activities like running, lifting weights, playing physical games to name a few. In other words, it is called physical body activity whereby the human gets the chance to move around vigorously and actively (Pittet et al, 2009). Physical activity is a major contributor when it comes to improving organ functionality and performance. For instance the human heart can be function more effectively when its function is challenged e.g. when exercising hence improving its performance in general (Booth et al, 2012). Additionally, body exercise can be used as a methods to lose weight especially for the people who need to keep fit. With body exercise, a person can prevent disease like obesity, heart disease, stroke to name a few.

Poor lifestyles

Poor lifestyle choices such as smoking can also be a cause for chronic disease. Smoking involved the inhalation of harmful substances into the human body which are likely to damage the lungs, throat and liver (Durstine et al, 2013). Apparently, any kind of smoking can cause disease like lung cancer, throat cancer, asthma etc.

Causes of Chronic Diseases

Alcohol overuse

This is also another type of poor lifestyle choice. Alcohol overuse can cause disease like liver cancer, liver cirrhosis and other disease related to the liver. Alcohol abuse involves the ingestion of harmful substances into the human body frequently and for a long period of time hence causing such kinds of diseases.

Poor dieting

In the modern era, the choice of foods and eating habits for the current generation has proved to be very poor and unhealthy. Many people are often feeding on junk foods which means that they actually do not take balanced diet foods. The capability for such kinds of foods to increase body weight and cause other related health problems are very high (Egger and Dixon, 2014). Some examples of chronic disease caused by poor dieting habits include, stroke, cancer, obesity, heart disease, hypertension to name a few.

Healthy lifestyle choices

In most cases, doctors encourage on healthy lifestyle choices to help prevent and manage chronic diseases. However, many people or rather patients do not understand the meaning for such recommendations and therefore may not implement the recommendations into their lives (Fortin et al, 2013). A healthy lifestyle includes carrying out practices like healthy eating habits, body exercising, manageable or reduced alcohol use (if possible) to name a few. In other words, with healthy lifestyle practices, a person is capable of reducing, preventing and eradicating almost all the causes of chronic diseases. Therefore, to prevent and manage some of these chronic disease conditions, patients are advised to exercise and choose healthy lifestyle behaviors on a daily basis (Hart and Millard, 2010). In addition to that, healthy lifestyle practices may also involve stress management techniques, nutritional counseling sessions, exercise trainings etc.

Regular medical checkups

This is whereby a person visit the doctor to be checked on a regular basis about their entire health status. This is however applicable for diseases like the chronic health conditions which have recently become the cause for death among people of all ages. People with such chances can be screened for diseases like cancer of all types, body weight measurement to determine obesity occurrences, heart disease condition occurrences, stroke to name a few.

The project will be carried out by a team of health students with the help of other health specialists and experts like registered nurses and doctors working in the community. The group will focus on identifying the most common chronic diseases and conditions by referring to the public and private health institution records. However, this will be done after permission is granted from the institution’s management team and most of the patients. The team will then question the patients in records received as well other patients who may not be in the records. Furthermore, the team will also be helped by the patient’s relative and other people who are responsible for taking care of them. Through this, the team will be able to get the required data to carry out and complete the project successfully.

Healthy Lifestyle vs Chronic Diseases

Project team members’ compensation- $300,000

Consultation fees- $10,000

Travel fees- $100,000

Telephone expenses- $3,000

Project advertising expenses- $5,000

Community seminars and training costs- $200,000

Resource purchasing expenses- $200,000

Miscellaneous expenses- $300,000

Total Budget- $1,118,000

Every project and project team has some problems or limitations that hinder them from completing the project successfully and achieving the project objectives. In this project, some of the expected limitations include the following:

Lack of cooperation from the community members. Some people may refuse to give the project the permission to study and reference their health conditions. The main reason for this is the fear and worry of being known by the whole community. This means that most of them may need to keep their health conditions a secret from the public which is the most probability for most chronic disease patients.

Lack of enough funds to conduct the project

Lack of clear and current health records from the health institutions

As for the project, the process will be focusing specifically on achieving the two main objectives. The project team members will therefore concentrate on ensuring that all the problems mentioned above are identified and solutions sort prior to project commencement period. In addition to that, the project manager will ensure that the projects scope, budget, time frame and resources to be used are followed and implemented to the letter. The team will not study or conduct the project but will also educate the community members (especially the patient already suffering from these diseases as well as their relatives and care givers) with the aim of increasing their knowledge on healthy living and lifestyles, disease prevention and management. Through this, the project will be able to increase and improve community development by helping the country’s citizens live a healthy productive life.

1^st to 7^th November 2017- Project topic

8^th to 14^th November 2017- Project background introduction

15^st to 21^st November 2017- Project need

22^nd to 29^th November 2017- Project objectives and implications

30^th to 6^th December 2017- Literature review

7^th to 13^th December 2017- Methodology

14^th to 20^th December 2017- limitations and evaluations

21^st to 29^th December 2017- recommendations and conclusion

I can recommend the project team members to first and foremost identify and find solutions to the possible project limitations before the project is officially commenced.

I can recommend the project team members to not only focus on educating the patients with chronic diseases and their relatives but also consider developing and improving health institution follow-ups and operations that relate to chronic disease prevention and management

Project Objectives and Budget

I can also recommend the community member to offer as much cooperation as possible to the project team members simply because they are the ones to actually realize the most benefits from the project once it is completed and successful

Conclusion

Nowadays, chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and arthritis are the most common. These disease are currently some of the main causes of death among the population of the current generation. These diseases have proven to be costly to prevent and manage besides taking many years to get rid of them. These diseases may not be cured by use of any vaccine but can be prevented and managed. This basically means that every patient or any person on the verge of being diagnosed with a chronic disease to focus on getting involved with some practices that can help prevent and manage them. For instance, stress management procedures, healthy living choices like good eating habits, engaging in physical body exercising to name a few. Therefore, with the help of this project and by adhering to the recommendations mentioned above, the Australian citizens will be in a position to prevent and manage most of the common chronic diseases affecting the population.

References

Booth, F.W., Roberts, C.K. and Laye, M.J., 2012. Lack of exercise is a major cause of chronic diseases. Comprehensive Physiology.

Bynum, B., 2015. A history of chronic diseases. The Lancet, 385(9963), pp.105-106.

Durstine, J.L., Gordon, B., Wang, Z. and Luo, X., 2013. Chronic disease and the link to physical activity. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2(1), pp.3-11.

Egger, G. and Dixon, J., 2014. Beyond obesity and lifestyle: a review of 21st century chronic disease determinants. BioMed research international, 2014.

Fortin, M., Chouinard, M.C., Bouhali, T., Dubois, M.F., Gagnon, C. and Bélanger, M., 2013. Evaluating the integration of chronic disease prevention and management services into primary health care. BMC health services research, 13(1), p.132.

Greenberg, H., Raymond, S.U. and Leeder, S.R., 2011. The prevention of global chronic disease: academic public health’s new frontier. American journal of public health, 101(8), pp.1386-1390.

Hart, M.K. and Millard, M.W., 2010. Approaches to chronic disease management for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: strategies through the continuum of care. Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center), 23(3), p.223.

Landon, B.E., Hicks, L.S., O’malley, A.J., Lieu, T.A., Keegan, T., McNeil, B.J. and Guadagnoli, E., 2007. Improving the management of chronic disease at community health centers. New England Journal of Medicine, 356(9), pp.921-934.

Martin, C.M., 2007. Chronic disease and illness care. Canadian Family Physician, 53(12), pp.2086-2091.

Pedersen, B.K. and Saltin, B., 2015. Exercise as medicine–evidence for prescribing exercise as therapy in 26 different chronic diseases. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 25(S3), pp.1-72.

Pittet, I., Berchtold, A., Akré, C., Michaud, P.A. and Surís, J.C., 2009. Sports practice among adolescents with chronic health conditions. Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine, 163(6), pp.565-571.

Sturmberg, J.P. and Martin, C.M., 2007. The foundations of primary care: daring to be different. Radcliffe Publishing.