Medical Advanced Assessment Paper

Patients go to doctors every now and then for their medical and health issues. Patient engagement in healthcare is therefore of great significance because they are at the center of treatment. In this case, they must be able to understand what is happening to them. However, the most important critical part of patient engagement is for the doctor. Through this, the medical practitioner is able to identify the problem affecting the patient then come up with the best solution to the problem. The doctor is thus able to achieve open communication with the patient (Zaslove, 1998). As a doctor, there are times when you may be in a hurry. However, the only way of showing a patient that you care is not to show signs of being in a rush.

Even if you need to be rushing somewhere, the patient must not know this. The other way of ensuring the patient is engaged in by listening to them without interrupting in any way. The categories that will be used include attributions, self-regulation, anxiety, motivation, and self-perceptions. I. Biological assessment (i). Attributions: at 32 years old, the patient has been unable to engage in satisfactory sexual experiences. She cites extreme pain and discomfort whenever she engages in a sexual activity involving penetration (ii). Attributions: every time the patient thinks about getting into a relationship, she gets memories and flashes of the episodes of her experience and cannot stand the thought of being touched by a man (ii). Self-regulation: the only reason she manages to be intimate with a man is the consolation that she is a big girl now and should, therefore, deal with her fears.

At the same time, her fiancé is her best friend and therefore to be as much understanding as possible. (iii). Anxiety: Whenever she tries to be intimate with her man, she experiences great fear accompanied with fast breathing, trembling, and sweating (iv). For instance, the lady does not have many friends and most of the relationships she has tried in the past have failed terribly. Her friendship with women has also been destroyed. She only has one female friend in her life but she has never told her the experience because she is afraid of being judged (ii). Self-regulation: Is the ability to respond to the current demands of experience. For instance, she puts on a brave and serious face so that no one can read what she went through.

She is dating and putting up with sex only because she wants to become a mother in future and protect her children. To her, the mother let her down completely because she failed to protect her from her evil father, (v). Self-perception: This is an account of attitude or preferences defining one’s behaviour. For instance, she always feels like she is hated by everyone even by those she does not know. This has made her fear making new friends, dating, and even becoming romantic with her partner. He was always telling her that she was ugly and would never be loved by anyone. At the same time, he told her that he would kill her mother if she said anything about what the father used to do to her (DSM-5 Criteria for PTSD, 2018).

Although she never told anyone, this has affected her massively. I diagnosed her with PTSD for a number of reasons as seen in DSM-5. According to the system, 8 criteria can be used and she met each of them. She finds it difficult to experience positive effects such as love and affection and always feels isolated. The patient is highly irritable especially with men, is easily startled, and faces challenges when it comes to concentrating and sleeping. To add onto the checklist, her symptoms have lasted for years and not just a month. It is something that she has learned to live with. Also, the symptoms have caused functional impairment in her social life as well as career and education. Therefore, the emotional trauma that comes with the exposure to some life-threatening events are can cause long-term cognitive language.

PTSD, therefore, alters the cognitive processes like attention, memory, problem-solving, as well as planning. Therefore, the best treatment for PTSD should be based on the interplay between cognition and emotion. As I treat my patient suffering from PTSD, I will focus on the cognition and emotion interactions because the disorder usually changes the way the brain works (Hughes, 2006). For this treatment, I will rely on the cognitive theories used by many psychologists for the patients suffering from PTSD. All these are important and will only be met by using cognitive behavior theory. E. Self-Evaluation The growth of someone’s career depends on the small things that we do with the clients. This assessment of the patient enabled me to learn a few things about myself.