1. Two paragraphs of not less than 15-sentence each discussing the board question. You may want to use the first paragraph to explain what are the quality of life measures, and the second to embark in your opinion. (60 points)

2. You must comment on at least one other student discussion post. This response must contain not less than 10 sentences. (30 points)
What is your opinion of using quality of life measurements?

Please include the name of the person or question to which you are replying in the subject line. For example, “Tom’s response to Susan’s comment.”

Also please reply to another students comment below

Ashlee:

There are seven measurements that can be taken when determining someone’s quality of life. The first one being the overall general health of the patient that is being evaluated and this to me would be when the family doctor would look at all aspects from a health standpoint. The next one is physical functioning is the patient able to work, do normal activities, are they able to daily chores they would normally do. These are the questions I would be asking to measure the physical functioning. Role limitations is the next step, and this would include the family structure. Is the in my eyes would be how involved is the family in care and what type of family there is. Pain is the next step and if you have a patient who is on long term pain medication this may be hard to measure. Social function to me is one of the most important measures because what keeps us happy and living is our friends and family. Is the patient going outside and socializing are they making the effort to see friends, and this goes hand in hand with the next step being vitality. Vitality is the state of being strong and active and having energy and this one goes hand in hand with the next step being mental health. I believe the mind is the most powerful tool we own, but mental health is a very strong step.

I think it is good to use these measures so that the patient can get the proper help they need. I think it needs to be a team effort though not just one person or provider making the call on what the measurements are. I think the family doctor or internal medicine doctor needs to be involved but also a psychologist, nurse and also at some point the family if available. It should be an all over evaluation where everyone is evolved. Most of the time these measurements of life are done because a patient is ill or heading in a direction where they would need Palliative Care.  I think that this is part of the medical world and while we don’t like hearing that someone is being measured on their quality of life it is only there to benefit the patient and provide the help they may need.