Copd Intervention Nursing

As a nurse, the main function of my job is to take care of patient’s experiencing illness. “Patients go through five stages of illness symptom experience, assumption of the sick role, medical care contact, dependent - patient role, and recovery and rehabilitation.” (Weiss & Lonnquist, 2015) Most patients I take care of go through this stages. I had taken care of this particular patient multiple times. It seems as if she is always coming back to the hospital will the same problem, COPD exacerbation. COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is just that chronic. This patient experiences illness symptoms daily. She is always short of breath and having a difficult time breathing. She wears oxygen at home to help her breath. Sometimes, it is more difficult for her to breathe causing her to move along to stage two of illness: assumption or the sick role. This patient has assumed the sick …show more content…
The patient becomes dependent on the medical care provided her. She generally is compliant with care and steroids and breathing treatments are given help her breathe better. As a nurse, it is important that I go over self care with the patient before discharging her from the hospital. Weiss and Lonnquist (2015), define self care as “the broad range of behaviors initiated by individuals to promote optimal health, prevent illness, detect symptoms of ill health, heal acute illness, and manage chronic conditions”. I stress the importance of living a smoke free life and show her simple breathing exercises. This helps her when moving on to the final stage of illness, recovery and rehabilitation. With a chronic disease, this patient will see improvement with her breathing, there is no cure. She goes through the five stages of illness. Not taking my recommendations for quitting smoking and having no self care, she will be back in the hospital. At that point she will start the stages of illness all over