Case Management

Case Study Response

As a case manager within the mental health agency, the fundamental responsibility is to aid the patient or client in achieving recovery goals. Hence, this often involves the collection of data or information for reporting as well as collaborating with an existing team of resource managers in making large-scale decisions. Therefore, as a common duty in relation to being a case manager, I should also ensure that patient as well as his family receives advocacy support, accurate healthcare data or information, the potential referral services as well as the proper treatment plans. As such, the case manager acts on the patient’s behalf to ensure that the patient gets the best services available for quick recovery. Therefore, it is positive to mention that after a thorough investigation of the patient’s condition I support the colleague’s decision to arrange plans for admitting the patient for a Major Depressive Disorder. This is supported by the patient’s symptoms that result to clinical depression. Hence, with continued clinical depressions the patient will find it challenging to efficiently work, study or even sleep, eat, as well as enjoy friends and activities if he fails to receive assistance.

I agree to the plans to set up the client with the proposed care. The reason for this is that the health professional or psychiatrist is believed to have performed a number of medical evaluations to the patient. Subsequently, the patient is also believed to have received screening for depressions during his regular visits to the doctor. The doctor will also have frequently asked the patient regarding his personal as well as family psychiatric history as well as inquire the patient through questions, which tend to screen for symptoms relative to major depression. However, there are no blood tests, x-rays, or even other laboratory tests, which can be incorporated to diagnose for major depressions. But the doctor can run blood tests to aid in detecting any other relevant medical problems or issues that can appear to possess symptoms that are similar to those of major depressions. For instance, hypothyroidism, alcohol as well as drug abuse, some specific medications, and stroke that normally develops similar symptoms as major depressions.

During the handling of the patient with such a condition, it is significant to understand that Major Depression is a serious, yet a treatable illness. Depending on the severity of the patient’s symptoms, I may initially recommend treatment with antidepressant medications. Alternatively, I would also suggest psychotherapy, or commonly referred to as talk therapy, in which the patient will be involved in addressing his emotional states. Subsequently, other medications can be added to the original antidepressant to enhance its effectiveness appropriately. Some specific drugs have been evaluated and found to often tend to work better for some patients. Therefore, it would be wise to make the patient try out different medicine as different doses to establish the best drug that works for the patient. Additionally, there are also other forms of treatment or options for such clinical depressions, which embrace the electroconvulsive therapy, also known as the ECT or shock therapy. Hence, the ECT therapy can be incorporated or utilized if the drugs tend to prove ineffective or even when the symptoms appear to be getting more severe.

How Contaminated Water Affects the Community

Most freshwater sources around the globe appear to be threatened by water pollution, as is the recent case of Michigan’s Flint Water plant. Not only are people trying to control the resources poorly via wastage, they are also thoughtlessly contaminating it. Some of the main sources of such incidences of water contamination include: discharges of the untreated Raw Sewages from the households as well as factories; chemical dumps from the factories; urbanization; the increasing utilization of synthetic organic substances; oil spills; acidic rains resulting from the burning of Fossil Fuels; Agricultural run-offs, which make their way into rivers and streams as well as ground water sources; and human littering within rivers, oceans, lakes, in addition to other water bodies. Such harmful litter often includes plastics, aluminum, glass as well as Styrofoam. Currently, nearly everything that acts as a byproduct of the human civilization is contaminating drinking water. Additionally, governments via numerous Clean Water Acts as well as water resource policies have sought to standardize the discharges of pollutants within the water to diminish pollution as well as contamination. With the current reports, approximately 1.6 billion people have access to safe drinking water. Nonetheless, people are not acting fast enough as well as most industries are still finding ways to dump their toxic and harmful wastes in the sea, unseen.

The health effects of consuming or even drinking toxic water appear to range from no physical impacts to severe illness that can also result in death. The most common impact of contaminated water to the community diseases. Hence, some of the effects of drinking toxic water can often be immediate and even noticed for several years. As such, toxic water is normally associated with disease-carrying micro-organisms, referred to as pathogens, causing various waterborne diseases for instance dysentery and hepatitis. Subsequently, such effects also tend to embrace gastrointestinal as well as illness such as nausea, vomiting, cramps as well as diarrhoea. Nonetheless, the chemical pollutants, the industrial waste deposits as well as toxic wastes can also result in other long-term health problems to the community, particularly when the contaminate fish. The aquatic organisms, such as fish, can accidentally consume the toxic substances that transfer the toxins into the human body. The health conditions that can result from consuming water that is laced with chemicals and toxic wastes include organ failures, physical deformities as well as death.

Consequently, the manifestation of Escherichia coli bacteria, normally known as E. coli, within a water source indicates the existence of human and animal waste matter within the water. These mentioned bacteria are faecal coliform bacteria that are found in the intestines of humans as well as animals. Therefore, drinking water that contains these bacteria causes actual diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, headaches as well as nausea. The young children, as well as elderly people within the community, can be more susceptible to the relative adverse impacts of E. coli since their immune systems are believed to be delicate. Polluted and contaminated water also acts as breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and the mosquito bites can distress human health as well as cause diseases, such as malaria in addition to dengue (Ganim & Tran, 2016).

Reference

Ganim, S., & Tran, L. (2016, January 13). How tap water became toxic in Flint, Michigan. Retrieved April 2, 2017, from CNN: Health: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/