Case study.
Psychosocial factors
The word psychosocial is a combination of anything that pertains psychology, and relates to the social aspect of life, meaning connecting behaviour or thinking with their social aspects. Therefore it means that how a person’s mental stability determines how that person will relate socially.
The condition of Mrs J is highly a psychosocial disability that affects how she does things. For instance, she did not see anything wrong with leaving the house and heading for the stores in her pyjamas and slippers. Similarly, her interaction with other people had changed because she missed to attend the doctor’s appointment yet did not bother calling back to reschedule the appointment. Also, whenever she went to church, she left early, or she came in very late. Her son said that she talked about her late husband as if he was still alive, and therefore she was going through a mental illness that affected her behaviour among other people.
Instruments for evaluation
When evaluating any form of mental illness, the first and quickest way of diagnosing a problem is to check the person’s symptoms. For instance in this case, when Mrs J’s daughter, Vanessa says that her mother was naturally an orderly person then all of a sudden her kitchen is in a mess, with utensils all over, and most of them dirty, then there has to be a problem.
Looking at the subsequent behaviours of the patient, like assessing how he or she responds to questions, checking if they look confused or checking if they can remember things is also an essential part of diagnosing the problem that is likely affecting the patient.
Secondly, a patient can be done for a scan on the brain or even Xrays, but this only detects chronic mental illnesses that are brought about by a pathogen invading and eating up the mind. These are for mental illnesses like schizophrenia and can only be seen because it destroys the brain.
Another way of evaluating mental illnesses is by the use of screening tools. Seven tools were discovered by multinational researchers to aid in diagnosing depression. They include;
Geriatric depression scale with 5, 15 and 30 items (GDS-5)
Geriatric Depression scale 15 items (GDS-15)
Geriatric Depression scale 30 items (GDS-30)
The Hopkins System Checklist with 25 items (HSCL-25)
The Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS)
The Physical Symptom Checklist in 51 items (PSC-51)
The Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CES-DR)
Many primary care physicians are less comfortable to use this method to diagnose mental illness because they feel it does not have high sensitivity, meaning that its values are not very accurate and specific on the kind of condition the patient has. All in all, it is a rapid and easy method to use once a person has familiarized himself or herself with it.
Care planning and support system.
For Mrs J to get well, their children have to come in handy. They are the determinants of how fast the patient will get well. Family members know how the patient can be handled well enough per their personality. After being given guidelines on what to do or what not to do to the patient, they are essentially the best caregivers that a patient can have because they are empathetic.
Also, family members need to stay with the patient because they will keep the mind of the patient ever busy so that they left no chance of letting the patient be overly stressed so that they fall into depression. It is easier for family members to bring a patient out of depression because unlike a stranger, the family know what the patient likes to eat so they cook it for the patient and this will make the patient start opening up more. Suppose it was a stranger to stay with the patient. In that case, they might not even get along and the patient may become withdrawn and may hide from the caregiver who is a stranger because sometimes mental illnesses cause the patient to feel at risk and may think the stranger has come to harm her.
The fact that her children have not been visiting her may have enabled Mrs J to get an ample time to nurture stress which eventually caused depression—staying alone where no one talks to you are very dangerous because someone overthinks and this is highly likely to trigger stress which may turn to depression. It is important for her children to come back and stay with her or around her, where they could check on her every time. If all of them cannot move near their mother at the same time, then they must take turns in staying with their mother.
Interventions
To give the best intervention, the physician should assess the family history of the patient to check if the mental disease is hereditary. Also, they should determine how bad the condition is because if it is terrible, the patient has to stay and be cared for by the professionals until they are fit enough to be taken back to their families.
Mrs J is likely to face problems such as over expensive medication, and sometimes the medicines prescribed may not be easy to find. At that point of depression, it will be needful for Mrs J to go to the hospital frequently; therefore, additional costs will be added to the family budget. Also, she needs to eat special food that will increase her ability to get well soon because food strengthens the immunity of an individual.