Radiology Patient Care for Patients with Autism

Patient care is one critical aspect of the health sector. Some patients need to have a feeling of belonging whereby the healthcare workers show the necessary support both physically and emotionally as well as respecting their opinion. The whole concept of patient care revolves around encompassing, informing and also attending to the patients. The discipline of radiology offers a unique position of impacting the healthcare process by providing efficiency, enhancing on how to take care of patients and also reducing the cost that may get incurred beyond the practice of radiology. This paper will highlight in details the process of taking care of a patient with an autistic condition, outlining the clinician perspective of the patient as well as precautions and challenges faced when doing the work. 

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a health condition that mainly affects communication and behaviour development. The autism symptoms can appear in the first two years; hence the reason it is referred to as a developmental disorder. One of the characteristics of autism is that individuals having repeated behaviours with restricted interests. Also, the process of communicating and interacting with other people becomes difficult. Additionally, it makes the individuals not function appropriately in their various aspect of life including school work. 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (2019), the Autism Spectrum Disorder condition affects all the racial, Economic and ethnic groups. In table 1 provided, the statistics show how these health conditions are spread out among different races as well as the male and female gender among the eight-year-olds in the year 2014 (NIM, 2019). This health condition has a wide variation in its type as well as how severe the symptoms may be making it gets referred to as the ‘Spectrum.' The ability of an individual suffering from this health condition to function may get improved by various treatments and services offered by the health worker. Some of this condition is a lifelong disorder. 

When an autistic individual visits the hospital, there are several procedures that take place before patient care gets conducted on them. First of all, the doctors perform a diagnosis to ascertain that the individual has ASD. The development, as well as the behavior of the individual, is primary symptoms that the physician considers. Treatment is started right after the diagnosis which can be done at the age of two; hence it's advisable to seek medical advice as soon as possible. 

It is essential for the physician diagnosing an autism patient not to rely on any stereotypes. The traits exhibited by autistic patients can either be a challenge or strength. In some cases, autistic individuals self-manage chronic conditions by capitalizing on the need for consistency (Bruder et al., 2012). These individuals go-ahead and develop a lot of expertise in various fields where they have interest and come out the best. The positive traits, on the other hand, do not apply to all patients who have autism. Also, many patients maintain strong relationships and friendship as opposed to the stereotype that they always shy from social interactions. 

Although when it comes to the need to understand other peoples perspective normally referred to as cognitive empathy, autistic patients score the lowest on the average from the test conducted as compared to non-autistic individuals whose scores usually range. And again the limitations in affective empathy are not likely to get associated with autism. 

After the diagnosis process ends, the patient gets the necessary medical treatment as per his or her condition as directed by the doctor. Once the medical treatment process ends, the affected individual then gets under patient care. The process of conducting patient care is the most critical aspect in the recovery and acceptance process of individuals that are suffering from autism. Patient care is a broad subject that involves monitoring and relating with the patients. 

There are a number of things the clinician always aims to undertake when conducting patient care. When taking care of individuals with autism, getting to take them through the communication procedures is very important. Communication is a crucial element in human beings as it helps in passing information through speaking and understanding each other (Bruder et al., 2012). The health worker in charge of patient care should be ready to alter the usual interviewing style so that he or she can use an effective communication approach intended for the patient. Also, there is the need for the clinician to establish alternate communication ways in between visits since communicating through telephone may not be useful as such even though some autistic patients speak fluently. 

Also, communication is an essential aspect for both the clinician and the patient when administering drugs. Some patients may have a hard time and feel uncomfortable when their blood gets drawn; hence the clinicians need to be keen on the best way of administering drugs to them. The clinician may decide to talk to the patient in advance purposely to warn them about the medicine administering procedure so that they get prepared emotionally. Also in the case of children, clinicians can seek to offer an alternative drug administering method like giving oral medicine. 

Another objective of the clinician is to ensure they break down the vague statements and broad questions for their patients. For individuals who require exact language or take it literally, questions that are broad as well as the figure of speech and vague statements are not an easy task for them (Bruder et al., 2012). When a patient cannot answer a query 100% accurately, they tend to experience anxiety hence the need for health workers to be actual and precise. Also for certain patients to be able to give better responses to the questions asked there is the need for them to get reassured that the answers don't need to be 100% accurate or given multiple choices from where they get to pick their answers. 

Also, the health worker in charge of individuals with autism needs to avoid forcing patients to have direct eye contact when they don't want. The need not to force eye contact is because some patients may inadvertently seem rude from their facial expression since they have difficulty understanding non-verbal cues. Some patients may not be comfortable or be able to communicate when forced to maintain eye contact effectively. 

Additionally, patients with autistic condition need to be given more time to respond to questions. These patients have a problem in making real-time healthcare decisions as well as processing information fast enough to reply to queries (Bruder et al., 2012). Before moving on to another subject, the clinician needs to give the patients enough time to process the information or stimuli. The clinician needs to encourage patients to note down the key areas to review later during their meetings as well as preparing essential information prior to their meeting. Scheduling second visits or longer appointments is necessary so that the patients get more time with the clinician. 

Lastly, the health worker in charge of patient care for the autistic individuals should always handle the whole process consistently. The patients may not be able to function well in the case where the normal changes because such an event causes anxiety or confusion. For them to stay focused and be comfortable, these patients need to get detailed explanations and more clear agendas before they plan their visits. In the cases of difficult runs, the patients will benefit from trial runs. 

Individuals with autism condition are often treated differently from normal patients. The reason this two different set of patients get varying attention is that individuals with the autistic condition have a low level of cognitive empathy which is their ability to understand and perceive other people usually. Since they may not relate to each other like normal people, there is a need for health workers to treat them in a different way in which they can easily get understood. 

According to the longitudinal studies, there are reports of sleep disturbance among the children and adults suffering from the condition of autism (Christina et al., 2014). As a child, the sleeping problems keep on persisting some of which get associated with challenging behavior. 

Another challenging task faced by the clinicians when conducting patient care to individuals who have autism is communication difficulties. Sometimes the patients cannot communicate effectively with the clinician, or they may misinterpret some nonverbal cues something that will provoke them. The communication breakdown makes the process of explaining different aspects of living with the condition and getting to relate with other people become a huge setback for the health worker in charge. 

In conclusion, patient care is an essential healthcare process that helps patients in their recovery process. All patients deserve quality patient care including individuals with Autism Disorder Spectrum. Patients with this condition should get completely different patient care that suits the nature of their disease from other normal patients. The different patient care attention will help in the process of recovering according to the specific autism condition. 

Table 1 

Table 1 

References 

Bruder, M. B., Kerins, G., Mazzarella, C., Sims, J., & Stein, N. (2012). Brief report: the medical care of adults with autism spectrum disorders: identifying the needs.  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-012-1496-x    42 (11), 2498-2504. 

National Institute of Mental Health (2019) Autism Spectrum Disorder. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disorders-asd/index.shtml 

Nicolaidis, C., Kripke, C. C., & Raymaker, D. (2014). Primary care for adults on the autism spectrum.  The Medical clinics of North America ,  https://www.medical.theclinics.com/article/S0025-7125(14)00099-6/abstract 98 (5), 1169–1191. doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2014.06.011