The Importance of Continuum Care in Human Health and Different Nursing Roles

The Health-illness Continuum
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The Health-illness Continuum
Examine the health-illness continuum and discuss why this perspective is important to consider in relation to health and the human experience when caring for patients.
The health-illness continuum delineates a patient-centered graphical illustration of care spanning an entire lifetime that incorporates integrating mechanisms and services and tracks and guides patients over a timescale via the comprehensive arrays of mental health, social, and health services across all care intensity levels (American Sentinel College of Nursing & Health Sciences, 2020). It posts that wellbeing entails both mental and emotional health, including being ill or not. The health-illness continuum facilitates patient’s recovery by ensuring that they believe that they will be well by helping them obtain mental and emotional development. At times, individuals could not portray any physical manifestations of an illness but still be anxious, unhappy, depressed, or continuously complain about not feeling unwell, which could impact an individual’s wellness (Strohecker, 2019).
Figure: The illness-wellness continuum (Strohecker, 2019).
Considering the above-presented health-illness continuum, wellness definition varies from individual to individual. Some define wellness as the exact opposite of being ill. In this vein, wellness is delineated as the absence of physical manifestations of a disease. Other persons are constantly motivated to remain active to sustain a healthy lifestyle. The rest incorporates an individual who is either dissatisfied or satisfied with their current health condition. The right facet portrays wellness levels, and the left facet indicated illness degrees. The continuum posits that wellbeing or wellness is a dynamic phenomenon instead of static (Strohecker, 2019). This perspective is vital in treating hopeful patients since it constitutes both their emotional and mental development. Given this viewpoint, patients are motivated to enhance well-being and prevent potential emotional and physical illnesses by assessing the context where the patient lies within the care continuum. It also estimates patient-attained developments within their health (Strohecker, 2019).
Explain how understanding the health-illness continuum enables you, as a health care provider, to better promote the value and dignity of individuals or groups and to serve others in ways...