Right, Pandora, here we go. After reading some online literature and considering the implications of some of my One Precious Life articles I’ve come to the conclusion that I may come across as rather ignorant. In fact, I probably am rather ignorant.

In truth I’m an extremely privileged person, I have no real health concerns, I’m a young healthy adult, what right do I have to give advice on the health and wellbeing of individuals diagnosed with long term conditions? Because I honestly have no idea of how it must be to be diagnosed with a long term condition. My experience has only ever come from observing those diagnosed, but it’s truly impossible to imagine the first hand implications of such an event.

I’ve made recommendations on increasing activity in those experiencing exacerbated symptoms of arthritis and suggested that resistance training in elderly populations may be beneficial. Both of which may not be particularly appealing to those individuals. In those cases I was only looking at the figures and the data, analysing and making what I thought was the most logical decision.

It’s the same privileged position of clinicians, doctors, nurses and social carers that creates such hostility when many attempt to manipulate parameters of health and wellbeing through lifestyle interventions. In truth, who the hell are they to tell you what to do?! They don’t know how you feel! I understand that, you’re absolutely right. Logic isn’t all that matters after all.

Taking the arthritis case for example, activity is thought to reduce both acute and chronic pain associated with the condition, hence my recommendation. However at no stage did I consider whether the increase of activity was worth it for the individual, because it is likely in most cases that during that activity the individual in question is going to experience some form of pain, pain which they may feel outweighs the benefit of completing the activity. The fact that literature shows that individuals generally feel better after doesn’t matter to them, from an individual perspective.

From an organisational standpoint it’s the privileged view that allows optimal decision making in clinical settings. Doctors have to make unbiased decisions all the time. The cold, hard, truth is that if the doctor was not in the privileged position of being a healthy individual, and they understood the feeling that their patient was going through, they may not make the same decision. It’s the fact that they are in a privileged position that allows them to best inform individuals of the options available to them and their recommendation of a course of action. To help out THE MAJORITY, which is an important concept, because you’re not THE MAJORITY, YOU’RE AN INDIVIDUAL.

To display no emotion is to have the ability to make an unbiased logical decision based on current literature and ‘best practice’. However is that ‘fair’? The world isn’t a truly logical place, numbers, ratios, percentages, correlations all mean a lot to a scientist, but to you, going through your condition, experiencing your symptoms, that doesn’t matter quite so much.

At the same time it’s important for all of us to stop allowing our pride and resistance to help get in the way of our improvement, because we’re all guilty of that from time to time (That’s a blog for another day, I’ve got a feeling that’ll be less of opening Pandora’s box and more of ripping it to pieces with a chainsaw).

This concept as a whole highlights an extremely important point. There is a distinct need for individual care and support for those experiencing long term conditions, from others who have been through the same thing as well as clinicians applying current up to date research. We’re trying to create a holistic and individual approach here but in truth I can’t tell you what to do, because I don’t know how you feel. Ultimately, your health and wellbeing is in your own hands, we’ll just try our best to shine a light down the road ahead as you go on your way.

Jack Barton (Researcher, Rescon Ltd)

Links

http://www.the3ps.org/2013/07/15/pride-and-predudice-or-should-i-say-privilage-and-prejudice/