The Self-Regulatory Model (SRM)

The book that I have been reading is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, and I have read 55 pages out of 220. So far, there are answers to my current essential questions about the book. For “How does knowing certain knowledge impact an individual’s actions and behaviors?”, the answer is that it it can impact how this individual thinks in the future and how they develop further plans. Similarly, this is how Randy acts when he finds out that he has terminal cancer, begins to panic and worry about his future and his family’s future. He has a fear for what will happen to his family without him, however, he soon realizes that he has to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. For “How does fear impact a person’s actions and behavior?”, the answer

Some people adapt well in the face of a life-threatening disease. Resilience is vital for patients to overcome illness and reach their best outcome, mentally, emotionally, and physically. In a study by Chan and Wong (2006), coronary heart disease patients high in personal resilience achieved better outcomes than those low in personal resilience. This was indicated by higher physical and mental summary measures, lower cholesterol levels and better performance on the 6-minute walk test. Further, it showed that optimists are more likely to use adaptive problem-focused coping strategies. They place emphasis on the positive aspects of their illness, more readily seek social support, and have greater acceptance of uncontrollable outcomes (Chan & Wong, 2006). Cardiac patients with higher positive life orientation showed better recovery in response to treatment over one month. Similarly, this study found that optimistic cardiac patients responded more positively to cardiac rehabilitation programs, which aimed at decreasing the risk of future cardiac events (Chan & Wong, 2006).

The more traditional framework that would have been used would have been the scientific biomedical framework. This framework is a model that does not take into consideration the psychological and social factors which may be contributing to a person’s illness; the illness is simply seen in biological terms. This ideology is far outdated, and one can see this simply by reading the WHO’s most recent definition of health, mentioned in the opening of this paper. This model views medications as the resolution to all illnesses, however we know that in today’s society, medications can often cause further problems- for example the creation of superbugs such as MRSA in the hospital system, bugs that as a result of overexposure to antibiotics have now become immune to the medication’s effects, and can therefore be detrimental to a patient’s health. By choosing to concentrate merely on biological impacts on health, a vast array of other factors, such as the environment, the money invested in public health care systems and many more, are ignored. However, in today’s contemporary society there are new frameworks to consider that challenge the traditional framework in many ways, but also contribute to the complexity of defining health. One such framework is the socio-medical model of health. This model takes many factors in account when discussing ones health, and accepts that disease can be multi-causal. I mentioned earlier that people are taking responsibility for their own health, and although this remains true, some factors which may contribute to disease are out of our control- for example certain toxins that we may be exposed to in our environment, Chernobyl being an example of a catastrophic nuclear disaster impacting on the health of people in the surrounding area for generations. Socio-economic factors also have an enormous effect on a person’s

With the fast development of modern society, people suffer from stress from their family and work, so they start to seek ways to release their pressure in their lives. Moreover, people usually unconsciously sums up their own experience in positive views . In the essay “Immune To Reality” by Daniel Gilbert, he refers to the idea of “psychological immune system”, a tendency of human to adjust their negative perspective to another one, when people are suffering from wrenching setback. The tenacity of human psyche and its ability of self-protection make people form walls to protect themselves. Although some people use their walls unintentionally, they rely on those walls to protect themselves from adversity and to support these untrue beliefs.

The diagnosis of cancer can have an enormous impact on a cancer patient mentally. A cancer diagnosis can be shocking to some patients. "After you

I also agree with you that behavioral factors could affect someone 's health. Having control of your health is necessary. An individual should learn how to assess essential information regarding health to protect ourselves from misleading information that could lead us for being a victim of what we

Almost every individual has had an experience where they or someone they know have battled a disease. No matter what the disease is, the patient typically is associated with negativity; however, in this memoir by Suleiki Jaouad, the author places a different view on cancer. Suleiki Jaouad developed (AML) acute myeloid leukemia, due to a bone marrow disorder, at the age of twenty two. Throughout her story, Jaouad discusses the impacts of developing cancer and how she coped with her disease. Her most precious asset was her long, wavy hair, and she knew once she began her chemotherapy treatments that she would not be able to keep her long hair. She describes how she asked her doctor two questions after she was diagnosed, and one of those being whether or not she was going to be able to keep her hair. She then begins to inform the reader how she felt losing her hair and what the impact was in her life. She explains how every time she went in public, which was not often, she received stares because people associate baldness with cancer. That’s how society is. She wants to be more than an individual with cancer, this is when she

Maintaining hope is key for long-term survivors of diseases such as HIV infection and breast cancer. Healthy coping, however, differs from the common societal notion of “positive thinking.” Having the capacity to tolerate and express concerns and emotions not just the ability to put anxieties aside, and additionally, discussing these as well as uncertainties and fears, losses and sadness that usually accompany severe illness is generally

My father was witty and handsome, strong-minded and a diligent worker. I believe that is what made him so likable in his near to final days. We overlooked his trade in of John Travolta hair for Alan Arkin’s. We laughed at the mindless morphine talk. We took bliss in simply sitting with our unconscious father because we knew we only had days, hours, before he was no longer our loving father, but rather another tragic victim of cancer. I lost my dear dad when I was only fourteen, the time a little girl really needs her daddy the most: for strength and courage, for a virtuous example of young men to date, to help her embrace her natural beauty and divine nature. But, please,

The Common Sense Model of Self-Regulation is a complex system that highlights the health and disease self-regulation [5]. In this model, Leventhal defines disease representations as a person’s perceptions

”One of the greatest challenges of a nurse is to find comfort for patients” (Yousefi & Ali Abedi, 201). Patients feel discomfort that goes far beyond physical pain as that felt after a surgical procedure or an injury. Distress experienced by a patient as a result of any number of things can impair healing, increase mortality, and lead to poor outcomes. Treating the patient holistically and having a clear understanding of the relationship between the mind, body and spirt is imperative to meeting the spiritual needs of the patient. Spirituality becomes increasingly important in older adults later in life as they face issues such as chronic illness and their own mortality. Having a deep spiritual connection helps one feel as if their life

A. Attention Getter- I will never forget the day my mom called me and told me that she had found a lump in her breast. She immediately went to get a mammogram, and sure enough, it was breast cancer.

Ron was a young school going boy, whose family was living the American dream. His dad had retired from army and had a life assured income. His mom left the job to be with her family. They moved on to Canada, US. They bought a house which had a pool. Dad started a second career in an information technology company. Mom got another job. Little Ron was soon enrolled at Little Whingin Academy. Ron looked excited to go to school. However, Ron, was becoming increasingly easily fatigued, and had fine bruises that had nothing to do with ordinary playground activities. In, 1999, May, he was diagnosed with the most advanced stage of neuroblastoma which is a rare form of childhood cancer, with very little time left to live. The Dream of happy life was

In the 1800’s, a cancer diagnosis was viewed as the equivalent of death (Holland, 2002). In this day and age, there was no known cause or cure, and it was considered inhumane to reveal the diagnosis to the patient. In a constantly changing and advancing society, this ideology was transformed as the result of an accumulation of technological advances, education, and research initiative. This led to the acceptance of the notion of cancer worldwide. As cancer continued to become more prevalent, health care providers and researchers were forced to further investigate the biology, development, and treatment of cancer. The interaction of cancer outside the realm of molecular and cellular biology became apparent in the mid 1900’s and has since found importance in the fields of psychology, neuropsychology, and psychosocial oncology (Holland, 2002).

According to the Common Sense Model (CSM), when a health threat is perceived by the individual, they progress through three stages: (1) mental representations of the health threat; (2) coping actions or behaviors that help the individual cope with the health threat; and (3) how well the coping strategies manage the