Rheumatoid Arthritis

Case Study: Adult Nursing- Social Services and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Case Study: Adult Nursing- Social Services and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Introduction

Social outcomes of being a single mother are far outreached in terms of the hardships that the mother faces. It can also be coupled when the mother is a patient of rheumatoid arthritis since the age of eight. On top of that, she is only twenty three. The factor of her age, disability and responsibility makes her highly vulnerable for social welfare dependency and emotional distress. In this essay, the social outcomes of this case will be studied to relate the problems of the mother named Sarah and how it can be socially solved and supported.

Discussion

Social aspects of physical disorders are vital when discussed in terms of welfare and assistance. The subject in the case study is a patient of Rheumatoid arthritis named Sarah. She has been affected by the disorder since the age of eight years. The important social factor of Sarah's health which will be discussed in this essay is her disability. Rheumatoid arthritis is a disorder of joints that usually effects at the later span of a person's lifetime. But the form of arthritis called Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis or Juvenile Chronic Arthritis. The exact cause of it in children is still unknown, but its symptoms can be minimized. Approximately 12,000 children are affected by this disorder before the age of sixteen (AC, 2013).

It is not clear what type of rheumatoid arthritis was Sarah suffering from. Since the age of eight Sarah let the disorder develop in her body and it can be presumed that she did not get proper care for the disease. It lead to the prolonged episodes of disability that made her bedridden. And ultimately she could not care for her two year old child. Since it is evident that Sarah had a very caring mother who cares for her children, it can be assumed that she could get proper care for her rheumatoid arthritis during her lifetime. This could be due to stress related to her disorder (Prosser, 2010).

Due to the early onset of this disorder, we assume that Sarah must have had troubles in her academic life. Secondly, the fact that she cannot continue her fulltime job due to her disability may be a reason for the worsening of her condition. Since she is only twenty three and has a two year old kid, it can be estimated that she got pregnant at an age of twenty one (Rohlfsen, 2008). It is a very early age for a girl to have a baby of her own (Presler-Marshall & Jones, 2012). The idea of getting pregnant and having a child at such a tender age is a risk factor. Pregnancy is not a contraindication in patients with rheumatoid arthritis but, some of the medications can cause birth defects in the children (WebMD, 2013).

The condition of being bedridden influences Sarah's social life drastically. The age of twenty three is the one in which an individual enjoys ...