Understanding the human experience across the health-illness Essay

Understanding the Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum
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Understanding the Human Experience across the Health-Illness Continuum
The illness-wellness continuum is a graphical illustration concept that was first developed in 1972 by John Walton Travis. Travis, a medical practitioner, and author identified that a human being's overall wellness is much more than the presence or absence of a particular disease (Blount et al., 2020). Therefore, he presents an illness–wellness continuum model that was used to explain both the physical wellness and the mental and psychological condition of an individual. This model focuses on the all-around wellness of a person rather than just the physical treatment of a particular disease. This paper focuses on this illness –wellness model and reflects on its relevance in providing patient's health care.
The most significant feature of the illness-wellness continuum model is that it focuses not only on the treatment plan of an individual in terms of a particular disease but also on a person's overall well-being. Over the years, people have suffered from severe emotional disturbances without any physical evidence, symptoms, or signs. Additionally, not much attention was given to these cases. This lack of attention to such access is dangerous since it can lead to detrimental consequences at some point. The figure below presents the illness-wellness continuum model.
The right side of the model indicates the individual's wellness, while the left suggests the illness side. In the middle, there exists a neutral point that shows the absence of any illness. At the same time, these middle point shows someone who is physically well but is not stable in terms of their emotional and mental wellness(Lothes,2020). A patient who moves beyond the neutral point to the right side of the model shows an increased level of wellness, while a patient who proceeds from the center of the model to the left shows a depreciating condition of their health. However, for individuals who are on the left, they can move up the model to the right through medications, surgery, and psychotherapy to first get to the middle where symptoms are alleviated.
Fig 1:
Illness-wellness continuum model
This paradigm is essential and useful since it enables an individual to move to the right side as far as possible to improve their well-being and health. For pe...