Bipolar Disorder and its impact on mental health
What Is The Impact Of Welfare Provision Upon Social Groups?
In every period of life, mental health is important to live a sustainable life. Mental illness can affect the brain that insists a person’s way of thinking, mood, mentality and feelings. Due to such illness, a person lacks the ability to do regular activities and the ability to connect with other people and the surroundings as well. There are different types of mental health issues and symptoms vary from person to person (Rosenbaum, Tiedemann and Ward 2014.). In case of Suzanne, a 29 years old woman, the Bipolar Disorder has hampered the lifestyle. According to the diagnosis report, she experiences periods of extreme lethargy, depression, hypomania and sometimes severe mania as well. Bipolar disorder is characterized as a brain disorder that causes swing of mood of the patients from one extreme to another. The patient having Bipolar Disorder experiences emotional distress and fails to maintain regular routines (Grunze 2015). The nature of exhaustive spending may lead to financial stress. Such person fails to maintain relationship with the family friends and surroundings as well.
In some cases patient attempts suicide also (Latalova, Kamaradova and Prasko2014). 20% of the people that are suffering from Bipolar Disorder complain to have depression (Edition 2013). Thus, the disorder was formerly known as Manic Depression. To live with such a person is learning for the family and friends that how to manage situations that can create symptoms within the patient and how to support the patient to find effective way to counter the issue. Both the proper medication and the psychotherapy is needed to cure the disorder. Normally the illness takes an average period of 10 years to be cured completely (Grunze et al. 2013). Apart from the problems that can be cured through medical process, the patient has to face many social problems. Social barriers are one of the main obstacles in the way of curing mental health issues. Due to exhaustive spending, one could suffer from poverty. It is not always that the family will support the patient in this situation and this may lead to the family breakdown. In some cases, the patient has to face social discrimination and unequal access in the workplace. Due to some prejudice in the society, the patient suffers from social exclusion and relative deprivation (Corker 2013). Social welfare provision refers to the services provided to the people in need with in a community, for example, providing healthy environment, proper healthcare services, providing help to the people suffering from illness or any disability, child care and protect the right of individuals (Munn-Gidding and Winter 2013).
Social welfare provision and its purpose
The purpose of welfare provisions is to support and protect such persons from impairment. Services provided by the social welfare provision include providing protection from social discrimination, support the patient when there is no support provide by family, relatives and friends, providing proper health care support and financial support in case of needy people. The responsible authority for providing social welfare is the ministry of human resource and social security. Such services also provided by local authorities. However, there are some negative aspects of social welfare provisions that are creating trust issue within the community. In many cases, the service providers fail to understand the central needs of the patients. In most of the cases, they prefer to send a mentally misbalanced patient to the asylum, which is not always necessary. The welfare service and mental health is correlated. It is important to provide services to improve mental health of the population that lead to the reduction of negative effects of welfare dependence. In order to provide such services, there are many policies known as social welfare policies that help to provide better standard of living. One of such policy is The Human Rights Act, that was implemented in the year 1998. The act provides equal right to the person with mental health issue (Richards 2017). The Equality Act, 2010, provides protection from social discrimination and deprivation for the person who is mentally disabled to perform the regular activities (Bryson 2017). Implementation of such law is beneficial for the patients and their family as well. These acts are the most reliable source that makes understandable the importance of welfare provisions. Such social policies are appreciable because they play important role in reducing social discrimination and provide better standard of life to the people who need support in order to survive in the society. People need to understand the importance of such service and accept its contribution to the social development.
Physical disability refers to the restrictions to a person’s physical functioning and body movement. Such disability can be caused due to many reasons for example, spinal cord injury, brain injury or any muscular disorder (Gilissen 2014). The disabilities include, blindness, hearing disability or deaf, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and many others. In this case, Simon, a 54 years old person is suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis. The illness affects most of his joints especially hands, knees, fingers and hip joints. Due to this he is facing difficulties in doing daily activities like eating, walking, driving, writing and typing. Thus, he is totally dependent on the services provided by welfare provision. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused when the immune system attacks the infected cells lining to the joints, thus making the joints stiff, swollen and painful. This can damage the joint and the cartilages as well. Such disability restricts the body movement of a person making it difficult for the person to do regular activities ( Nies et al. 2015). There is no cure of Rheumatoid arthritis. Some recent research indicates that, proper medication in the early stage can slow the progress of the disease ( Nies et al. 2014) Medication includes injection to the joints, drugs like Tramadol and Methotrexote, which can reduce the pain (Smolen 2014). Person with such disabilities feels neglected. It is irritating to depend on other persons to do the daily activities. Such person does not get same respect as a non-disabled individual. This kind of social discrimination affects the thinking of the patient and continuously reminds that the person is not as able to contribute as others are. Sometimes the patient is treated as a burden for the family. Unequal access to the work place due to disabilities leads to unemployment. Due to the inability to contribute to the family the patient can suffer from relative deprivation (Oliver 2017). It is not that easy to adapt such an environment to survive. Such person always needs an attendant to take care. Social care provision is very important for the person with physical disability. Due to monetary problem, people cannot afford a full time nurse or attendant. The welfare provision provides attendant to take care of such person. Like the case of Simon, his attendant Julie takes care of him in assisting areas of personal care, meals and cleaning. There are so many old age home created by the social service providers in which proper care to the person with need is provided. Such provision helps the patient to overcome the issues like social exclusion and deprivation. In such old age home there are many people with physical disabilities, thus one never feels any kind of discrimination or they belongs to an inferior kind. Beside personal care, the service providers also provide medical treatment according to the needs of the patients.
Negative aspects of social welfare provision
They always try to protect such people from being abused. According to statistics, 15% of the population in the world is physically or mentally disabled and social care provision is an important part of their life. Beside such positivity, there are some negative impacts of social care provision on some people. The funding amount allotted to the social care services is not enough as the population is increasing day by day. The service providers need to focus on the requirements of the people. There are many remote areas where access of social services is unavailable. On the other hand, social service providers have to face harassments in dealing with the family and the patient as well. It demotivates their interest of working for social purpose. The implementation of acts and laws regarding the needs of the people with disabilities is the result of the continuous effort of social care providers. The Human Rights Act, 1998, is one of such acts. It provides protection of rights of the person with disability in order to give them equal status in the society (Richards 2017). Another act that is beneficial is The Equality act, 2010, which provides equal respect and opportunity to the person with disability in the workplace and in the society as well (Bryson 2017). In spite of having acts and laws, many people that are suffering from physical disabilities, have to face a lots of problems. Social care provision plays an important role in addressing such problems. The service providers ensure the protection of individual rights and saves people from social exclusion and deprivation. Such activities could help to reduce the discrimination in the society and it is the next leap towards sustainable development.
References:
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Corker, E., Hamilton, S., Henderson, C., Weeks, C., Pinfold, V., Rose, D., Williams, P., Flach, C., Gill, V., Lewis-Holmes, E. and Thornicroft, G., 2013. Experiences of discrimination among people using mental health services in England 2008-2011. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(s55), pp.s58-s63.
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