Hello, today I will tell you about people-centered health care. The objective of this lesson is to comprehend how health care treatment should consider each person and their individualities. So, for this, we need to recap what we have learned until now.
First, pain is a warning sign, it protects our bodies from adverse and dangerous effects. You should also remember that when pain is perpetuated for a period longer than the usually needed to heal, it becomes a health concern on its own and, nowadays, it's considered to be an illness by itself, called chronic pain. In addition, pain perpetuation is related to the brain's ability to associate pain and fear.
And such fear-related behaviors, as we've seen in previous videos, cause avoidance behavior, hypervigilance and may lead to disability. We also talked about how beliefs can affect people's behaviors and the choices they make. This may cause avoidance towards certain movements and this may also be caused by erroneous information given by health professionals to patients.
Someone with limiting beliefs may believe that pain equals injury, that getting old is a sign of damaged joints, that movement causes pain and that work itself may hinder recovery. We saw that all these are limiting beliefs that may hinder pain treatment. So, in order to provide people-centered treatment, we need to guarantee individuality, understanding the entire context a patient is inserted in.
To consider a patient's individuality, we need to comprehend aspects related to psychological factors, social and cultural, biological and even environmental factors of where they are inserted in. But what is people-centered treatment? People-centered treatment is a pact health professionals make with a patient and their family to create personalized and individual treatment for them.
In order to do so, health professionals need to guarantee that the patient's preferences, priorities and desired objectives will be taken into consideration during the entire treatment process. In addition, we need to take into consideration a patient's set of beliefs on treatment and their pain. So, people-centered treatment is a collaborative approach that aims at empowering the patient, acknowledging them as the core of decision-making.
In this treatment, patients autonomous to make their own choices and to find the therapeutic quality needed to treat their pain. From assessment to choosing objectives and intervention methods, and even documentation of results, we, health professionals, take the patient's values and preferences into consideration. And how to perform people-centered treatment?
What does it need to really happen? First, health professionals should offer patients all pieces of information available on pain and treatment. This is important as it allows patients to make their own choices.
Can you imagine how important this is for a patient and their family? To know what is happening to them and to be able to make decisions based on this information? In order to have people-centered treatment, it's necessaryto, initially, establish good communication between the health professional and the individual receiving treatment.
In addition, the patient should have some knowledge on pain neuroscience, which is what we're doing here today. It's also necessary that workers understand patients and, also, have the ability to listen to the patient's whole story, without judging them. It's also important that final decision on objectives and interventions are made in group.
And why is people-centered treatment actually important? What changes when we do this? The first aspect is increased patient satisfaction and, this way, they're more likely to adhere to their treatment.
They feel more autonomous since they made their choices and, now, they aren't passive anymore, they're active in their improvement, they're independent, they act as a key agent of their rehabilitation, they develop new ways to deal with pain in their everyday life. In addition, as I've mentioned previously, it increases adherence to treatment and this leads to less chances of hospitalization and of using medication. We also see positive changes in health habits, the patient not only sees their pain differently, but they also change their life habits.
Patients may also resignify their pain process, experiencing acceptance. They may also change their limiting beliefs, decreasing pain and decreasing disability in their routine and improving their general physical capacity and quality of life. How to identify a health professional that uses the people-centered treatment strategy?
First, this type of worker helps patients to become more active and to continue their treatment, favoring their choices for healthy life habits. In addition, it helps individuals to understand their pain and, thus, resignify their limiting beliefs. A patient has more autonomy when a professional helps them to understand the situation they're going through.
The professional should also stimulate social participation, daily activities and returning to work. This professional acts clearly, they set clear objectives and make decisions on intervention with their patient. In the context of people-centered treatment, both health professionals and the person in pain need to be flexible.
It's possible that, some day, things won't be as expected. It's possible that the estimated treatment time may need to be longer, so they should be flexible to sit down, talk and replan if necessary, which isn't a bad thing. These are just obstacles found along the way, since the route towards improvement is one of the possible paths to take.
Patients need to feel safe and to have receive proper orientation so they can overcome their obstacles. Thank you for watching until now, I hope this video was helpful to you. [Thank you for watching until now!
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