The Values and Health Perceptions - Essay Example

Family assessment Introduction The nursing diagnosis report below describes the situation of a middle American family living in New York. Just as with any other type of assessment, the diagnosis process investigated the family’s wellness risks and actual functional health patterns among other pertinent issues affecting the wellbeing of the family. Family values are fundamental cultural features that in fence a family’s health concerns. A family invests in its health care based on the importance it accords health (Grotevant & Carlson, 1989). The values and health perceptions thus constituted important aspects of the diagnosis among other equally important aspects of family as the discussion below portrays. The family values its health and therefore invested in numerous health policies. Additionally, the family values its security and therefore takes every precaution to avert any type of accidents that may impair the health of any of its member. Making the home safe is a family responsibility. As such, the family under study strives to make the home safe by ensuring the strategic placement of the equipment and electronics in the house. The family further strives to manage the space of its home efficiently by avoiding any instance of crowding in the home. This facilitates easy movement of both the adults and the children without risking any form of injury. Nutrition is yet another fundamental feature that contributes to the wellbeing of a family. The family strives to have balanced diets in order to curb the manifestation of any nutrition related infections. Balanced diet enhances efficient growth patterns thus enabling faster growth and physical wellbeing of individuals. The family observes consistency in their eating patterns often striving to consume adequate amount of water depending on the weather patterns of the day. Consistency in the eating patterns curbs instances of shock that arise from eating disorders. Eating supplies the body with energy to sustain the daily activities. This underscores the need for adequate physical exercise in order to burn out the excessive calories that often contribute to different types of nutritional disorder. The family admits engaging in different types of physical exercises including walking to work, using the staircase and taking art in different spots among others. Such are effective in burning out the excessive calories in the body thereby resulting in a lean and efficient body. Furthermore, physical fitness contributes to mental alertness. The family contends that taking part in the different types of exercises enhances their concentration besides contributing to their physical wellbeing. The family engages in numerous types of physical activities over the weekends among other vacation days. However, the family does not have any specific pattern of physical exercise always engaging only in partial exercise such as walking to either work or school and using the staircase. Sleep and rest are two essential features that influence the health status of a family. People must always sleep and rest periodically in order to refresh their bodies from exhaustion. Young children sleep for longer hours always extending past twelve hours depending on their ages (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). Adults on the other hand should have more than five hours of sleep daily besides sleep; people must rest periodically during the day. The family admitted having regular rests and sleeps with the children recording longer sleeping hours. The adults have varied sleeping hours depending on their engagements during the day. Lack of sleep portrays a type of disorder. The family admitted experiencing insomnias at times. In those incidences, the family admitted the existence of an issue that caused psychological trauma thus resulting in the lack of sleep. The effects of lack of sleep further manifested itself in causing a series of other injuries owing to the lack of attention resulting from the lack of sleep and adequate rest. Additionally, the family described numerous occasions in which the members of the family members experienced nightmares. Such are manifestations of psychological trauma that extend to sleep. Despite such, the family has regular sleep with appropriate periodic rest. This validates the psychological stability and cohesions all of which portray adequate consultations, peace, and regular discussions in the family. Cognitive abilities portray the mental developments of an individual. People must have the ability to remember particular occurrences and important things in their lives. Lack of cognition portrays an underdevelopment in the individual thus a health complication. Schools curricular for example have systematic methods of testing and grading cognition. The family provided consistent answers to the numerous questions asked during the diagnosis thus portraying their mental maturity. Besides the consistencies in their answers, the family narrated numerous circumstanced that depicted their cognitive abilities such included their most memorable occurrences. They narrated such with confidence and recollection in a manner that portrayed their psychological and mental maturity. The vivid description of the circumstances coupled with their ability to explain the logic of the situations and their narrations proved their recollection abilities (Bernstein, 2012). Elimination is an equally important feature that proves the psychological development of an individual, which the diagnosis covered with the view of assessing the ability of the family members’ ability to forget and recover from the numerous challenging experiences. Coping with situations if a social feature that often portrays the level of cohesion in a family, family members exhibit unique abilities to cope with different circumstances (Thomlison, 2010). Assessing the ability of the family to manage the different situations they face is an effective way of determining the effects different situations on the individuals. The family portrayed cohesion as the diagnosis determined that the members often share their experiences thus comforting and counselling each other in order to steer recovery among themselves. The family admitted facing numerous life challenges and horrendous experiences (Collin, 2011). However, they shared such among themselves with the children relying on their parents for the psychological support and guidance in order to recover from such traumas. Sexuality as a fundamental human feature further portrays the level of physical and psychological security in an individual. The diagnosis observed systematic sexual patterns and behavior within the family thus portraying the physical and psychological wellbeing of the members of the family. The parents take their tie to carry out sex education thereby enlightening their children on the physical features to anticipate as they grow up. Additionally, such diseases as cancerous infections manifest in different sexual organs such as the uterus and the breasts among others. Frequent analysis of such parts thus portrays the susceptibility of individuals to such ailments. The diagnosis thus investigated the prevailing sexual patterns in the family with the view of determining any form of sexual diseases and psychological trauma that would affect the sexuality of the individuals in the family. Relationships, self-perception, and sensory perception are yet other pertinent features evaluated during the diagnosis in order to determine consistencies. The family portrayed consistent behavior patterns in the numerous features of the assessment. The family portrays a level of cohesion as the children relate rely both among themselves and with their parents. This portrays the level of trust in the family. Additionally the members have numerous other relationships with their friends out of the family such portray the development of social features in the individuals thus their ability to interact with others and form relationships. In retrospect, the family assessment alongside provides numerous consistent behaviors and health patterns in the family. Such positive consistencies corroborate the claim of healthy and cohesive family that the parents made often during the assessment process. References Bernstein, D. A. (2012). Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Collin, C. (2011). The psychology book. London: Dorling Kindersley. Grotevant, H. D., & Carlson, C. I. (1989). Family assessment: A guide to methods and measures. New York: Guilford Press. Loftus, E.F. & Ketcham, K. (1994). The Myth of Repressed Memory. New York: St. Martins Press. Thomlison, B. (2010). Family assessment handbook: An introduction and practical guide to family assessment. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education. Read More