Human beings go through various stages of life; a person’s lifecycle involves five phases: infancy stage, childhood stage, youth stage, adulthood stage, and old age stage (Newman & Newman, 2017). In each stage of life, human beings interact with health experts differently. For example, patients between the ages of 20-60 years find it hard to interact with health care professionals because they feel hesitant to explain their issues adequately. These patients find it hard to explain their problems, especially when they are related to sexual changes. Therefore, stages of life affect the quality of interaction between the patients and health providers.
Infancy is a crucial stage of life; at this stage, infants rely on others to meet their basic needs, including shelter and food. Infants are transformed to the childhood stage after showing signs of advanced abilities, including making decisions. During childhood, parents nurture their children to promote healthy levels of confidence that enable them to make the right decision. The youth and the adulthood stages are characterized by strength and proper decision-making (Connolly & Kotsopoulos, 2017). Human beings at these stages can make proper decisions regarding their health. The old-age stage is characterized by memory loss and poor physical strength; therefore, they depend on family members to care for them. In each stage of life, human beings show various characters both physically and emotionally.
James, who was interviewed, is aged 72 and is suffering from prostate cancer. According to him, he had a good time interacting with the health experts and sharing his problems. He was open to the health care professionals who were taking care of him and did not hide anything as he wanted to get well. The healthcare professionals employed proper communications skills to encourage his share and express more about his sufferings.
Patients in the health care units expect support and a friendly environment with a homely atmosphere and amenities for leisure and recreation. An environment conducive and relaxed with a homely atmosphere for the care users and their families helps promote health and welfare (Kerstens et al., 2021). Even though most hospitals have supportive and homely environments, they lack facilities such as conducive outdoor environments. James said that the hospital was clean, and the staff was friendly when handling patients and their family members. The professionals are friendly and pay great attention to the suffering of the patients to ensure that proper treatment is administered. In addition, the nurses offered quick responses and reliable services.
The collaboration between the family members and the patient during healthcare is essential (Meid et al., 2020). Family members often provide mental strengths and emotional boosts that lead to positive health outcomes. During health care provision, patients feel less pain when seeing their family and friends. James gained emotional strength when he always saw his son beside him. The son supported him in all ways, including feeding him, washing him, and helping him take the medication as per the doctor’s prescription. At old age, patients need more family support than during the early stages of life.
When patients involve their family members in healthcare services’ treatment and planning process, they make it easy for healthcare providers to make decisions and provide treatment more effectively. James involved his son in his treatment procedure throughout his treatment. A patient’s medical history is significant in his treatment (Meid et al., 2020). The son produced his medical history, which helped the doctors administer correct treatment that influenced quick recovery.
In conclusion, Different ages affect the interaction with the clinicians differently (Meid et al., 2020). Old-aged patients interact freely with clinicians that youths, and adults. From the interview with James, old-aged patients indeed required more attention.
References
Connolly, M., & Kotsopoulos, N. (2017). Estimating the public economic impact of different hepatitis C healthcare policies in the Netherlands. Value in Health, 20(9), A410-A411.
Kerstens, H. C., Van Lith, B. J., Nijkrake, M. J., De Swart, B. J., Van den Bemd, L. A., Smeets, R. J., & Geurts, A. C. (2021). Healthcare needs, expectations, utilization, and experienced treatment effects in patients with hereditary spastic paraplegia: a web-based survey in the Netherlands. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, 16(1), 1-10.
Meid, A. D., Ruff, C., Wirbka, L., Stoll, F., Seidling, H. M., Groll, A., & Haefeli, W. E. (2020). Using the causal inference framework to support individualized drug treatment decisions based on observational healthcare data. Clinical Epidemiology, 12, 1223.
Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2017). Development through life: A psychosocial approach. Cengage Learning.