Chronic illness and disability : an overview

![CDATA[The greatest health challenge facing the world now and into the 21st century is the rising prevalence of chronic disease, the burden this poses for communities and its impact on healthcare systems. (Chrome disease may also be referred to in the literature a non-communicable diseases (NCDs), chronic illness or long-term conditions.) As we have the technology and treatments to keep us living longer, the world's populations are growing older, which also gives rise to the presence of chronic disease. This health challenge has the potential to lead to one or more of the following developments: disabtlity; co-morbidity; multimorbidities or premature death. Thus, the presence of chronic d1sease in our society poses a significant burden - social, economic, wellbeing and productivity - on the individual, family and wider community. Chronic disease is and will continue to place pressure on existing services, which are frequently designed for single disease management and are not necessarily responsive or coordinated to meet the needs of individuals and/or their family. Importantly, the rising prevalence of chronic disease can be reversed if individuals take responsibility for their health, modify risk factors (for example, New Zealand reports that over one-third of all health-loss related to chronic disease is preventable (Ministry of Health (MoH) 2016a), and governments institute healthcare policy focused primarily on prevention rather than intervention. Globally, nurses hold a pivotal role in coordinating care and acting as educators and advocators. In this context, the role requires nurses to develop caring attitudes, have knowledge of, and the skills in, the principles of nursing practice to provide optimal care to individuals, their family and the wider community. Subsequent chapters in this text use key chronic diseases and/or disabilities to illustrate the nurses' role and explain how it contributes to an individual self-managing and achieving optimal functioning. The use of a multidisciplinary approach to care has been reported as making significant improvements in the health outcomes for people with chronic diseases (McDonald, Cumming, Harris et al 2006). More often than not, the care coordination role within the multidisciplinary team is undertaken by the nurse (Parker & Fuller 2016), however, it is not exclusive to the nursing profession and other health professionals are just as able. Chapter 2 explores the role of nurses and other health professionals within a multi-disciplinary approach, as it relates to chronic disease management. Understanding what it means for individuals, families and the wider community to live with chronic disease and disability is as important as having specific practice knowledge, attitudes and skills in providing care. The intention of this book, therefore, is to give equal emphasis to what it means to live with a chronic disease and/or disability and to gaining specific practice knowledge, attitudes and skills. The chapters a re constructed to reflect this emphasis through the case studies presented, highlighting that the person and their family are central to the nurse's understanding of their needs, as they commence the illness trajectory related to chronic disease and associated disability. What follows in this chapter is a discussion on the key terms used throughout the text ; an overview of the global context of chronic disease and disability followed by information specific to the Australian and New Zealand contexts.]]