Common Health Challenges
Download student handouts: Common Health Challenges handouts [Word doc].
Suggested Learning Strategies
Strategies that Focus on Caring
1. Contributing to a Broadened Understanding of Common Health Challenges
Using the health wheel below as a guide, invite students, working in small groups, to discuss how common health challenges might affect all areas of health and healing.
Each group may be assigned a specific health challenge and given the task of identifying the primary components of the health challenge (e.g., pain, loss of function, immobility, fatigue, confusion, stress).
With this information, the group will identify how these changes might affect all other aspects of the person’s health (e.g., how fatigue might affect psychological, cognitive, social, and spiritual health).
The group will then discuss how changes in each dimension of health might positively contribute to healing. Each group will report back to the whole class.
Note: The health wheel is first introduced in the Lifestyle and Choices course. See “The Health Wheel: Indicators of Health” for more information.
2. Contributing to Person-Centred Care
The above process could be undertaken using scenarios of real or fictitious individuals who are struggling with one or more of the common health challenges studied in this course. Ask students to work in small groups to discuss how the changes in health brought about by the health challenge(s) are affecting all dimensions of the person’s health and healing and how each level of needs (as described by Maslow) is affected. The group will then discuss how changes in each dimension of health might positively contribute to healing. Each group will report back to the whole class.
3. Unfolding Case Study: Caring for Peter Schultz
As a homework assignment, ask students to review relevant textbooks, online courses, or other course materials describing cerebral vascular accidents (CVAs).
- Whole Class Review and Discussion
- In class, review the risk factors, signs, and symptoms of CVAs. List them on the whiteboard for reference. Following this, have students read the account describing the CVA experienced by Peter Schultz. See STUDENT HANDOUT 1.
- Small Group Discussion
- Working in small groups, students should apply their knowledge about CVAs to the scenario below by responding to the following discussion questions:
- What signs and symptoms of CVA did Peter experience?
- What were the immediate and long-term results of the CVA experienced by Peter?
- Working in small groups, students should apply their knowledge about CVAs to the scenario below by responding to the following discussion questions:
- Whole Class Debrief
- Come back together as a class and summarize the findings of each group. Highlight any signs, symptoms, and results of CVA that were not identified.
Note: Students could be instructed to add the scenario and session materials to their client portfolio for Peter Schultz.
STUDENT HANDOUT 1
Unfolding Ca