Running head: CLIENT AND FAMILY RESPONSE
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CLIENT AND FAMILY RESPONSE
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Client and Family Response to Multiple Sclerosis
Love Y. Aimee
Community College of Philadelphia
Department of Nursing
Client and Family Response to Multiple Sclerosis
The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of a family’s interaction and response to multiple sclerosis suffered by one of the family members. After a descriptive assessment of the client and family, the paper will investigate the family dynamics and disease impact through epidemiology, genograms, literature review, priority issues, and evaluation of outcomes. In order to protect the client’s confidentiality, the names have been changed.
Descriptive Assessment
Client/Family
The client M.B., an 18 –year old girl, lives with her 25-year-old brother T.B., and their mother A.B. and father P.B. M.B. was diagnosed of multiple sclerosis at age 15 during her freshman year while attending high school. Her school principal told her that she could leave school early each day, because of the side effects of her medications; but that wasn’t what M.B. wanted.“I didn’t want to be treated differently or with any special attention” she said. She wanted to be treated like everyone else. That behavior was predictable, as according to Erikson’s stages of development, M.B. is in the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage (Rudd and Kocisko, 2014). When her first symptoms of multiple sclerosis started three years ago, including numbness in her feet, M.B. did not understand what was going on in her body. According to Ghafari, Khoshknab, Norouzi and Mohamadi (2014), multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic progressive degenerative neurological disease that demyelizes the central nervous system. M.B. has one of the major types of MS called relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and she had five relapses since her diagnosis three years ago. During the relapsing phase, the patient reports loss of function and the continuing development of new symptoms (Ignatavicius and Workman, 2016). During the good periods of remission, M.B. still deals with some fatigue, and the progression of the disease sometimes interferes with her plans for the weekend. Currently M.B. is not able to walk without assistance and she uses a wheelchair as a means to get around. She also has difficulty eating on her own. M.B. has a home health nurse on a daily basis, a physical therapist, and occupational therapists that come at scheduled times. In addition, her immediate family of Latino origin, about four generations: her maternal grandmother, her aunt and her nephew came to live under the same roof when they heard about the disease. The whole family is a tremendous source of strength and sees her through the many struggles. Each of her friends bought an MS support bracelet to side with her. During the first year of her diagnosis, M.B. met an 18-year-old girl at a camp for kids with MS. The girl became a great support for her and helped her to understand that e...
