Living with chronic illness

Abstract

This chapter is about care for patients in hospital who have co-morbid chronic illnesses. Hospital nursing has traditionally been focused upon a concerted, therapeutic attention to an acute illness or injury. For example when patients enter hospital for surgery the nursing focus is on preparing them for the operation, attending to their needs and well-being during surgery, assisting their recovery from anaesthetic, supporting pain relief and healing, and coaching and assisting their return to previous levels of function post operatively. Similarly, the patient admitted for an acute medical illness is reliant upon nursing care that delivers interventions relevant to the health condition, monitors the patient’s response to these interventions, provides symptom relief for manifestations of their illness and supports their emotional and biophysical requirements daily during the admission. You will find that nursing does still involve these activities but the patient outcomes you are working towards are different from this one dimensional, curative focus. Over the past decade the demographic of the acute hospital patient has changed. Patients who are admitted to hospital for an acute illness or injury are increasingly likely to have at least one existing chronic illness in addition to their acute health concern and the nursing care you practice in the hospital setting will include chronic disease management.