There are a number of health risks associated with this patient’s obesity. The main one is that he is at a higher risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer. His high levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and HDL support the fact that this patient has an increased risk of many forms of heart disease and atherosclerosis (Copstead & Banasik, 2012). Secondly, his obese BMI combined with the fasting blood glucose of 146/mg/dL suggests that the patient either has or is at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (Copstead & Banasik, 2012). There are also a number of motility issues that can affect the patient’s quality of life, as well as continuing issues associated with the sleep apnea that he already suffers from. Bariatric surgery appears to be an appropriate intervention for this patient as he has no conflicting metabolic diseases and would not be a high risk patient for the surgery (Landsberg et al., 2013). Prior to this, it would be appropriate to try diet and lifestyle interventions.
Medication administration schedule:
6am: Sucralfate/Carafate 1g or 10ml suspension (500mg/5mL)
10am: Mylanta 15mL PO
11am: Sucralfate/Carafate 1g or 10ml suspension (500mg/5mL)
3pm: Mylanta 15mL PO
5pm: Sucralfate/Carafate 1g or 10ml suspension (500mg/5mL)
9pm: Mylanta 15mL PO, Sucralfate/Carafate 1g or 10ml suspension (500mg/5mL)
11pm: Mylanta 15mL PO, Sucralfate/Carafate 1g or 10ml suspension (500mg/5mL), Ranitidine (Zantac) 300mg PO
There are a number of strengths and weaknesses in this patient’s functional health patterns. The patient has an awareness of the dangers of his condition and can state a number of the problems that he has that are associated with being obese. Despite this, he shows little or no evidence of managing his condition through diet and exercise, which means that he is not making lifestyle changes that are required to improve his health (Landsberg et al., 2013). This reduces his functional health in terms of both the nutritional-metabolic and activity-exercise domains, two areas that need particular focus in the obese patient. The patient is also having issues with the quality of his sleep from sleep apnea, which is reducing his functional health (Landsberg et al., 2013). There is little information about the patient’s self-perception or self-concept, and it is difficult to ascertain whether there are any issues with relationships or sexuality from the information given. In many patients with obesity, eating is a form of coping or stress tolerance, which may be the case with this patient and would require some improvement to see his functional health improve (Landsberg et al., 2013). Otherwise, the patient seems aware that he needs to change his weight and that his weight is having an effect on his functional health.
There are a number of potential problems with this patient.
The patient is putting himself at risk for diabetes mellitus, if he does not have the disease already. This can have a problem in terms of health management, as the patient will need to put a lot more focus on improving his health to avoid complications from diabetes.
Many patients who are obese suggest that they have issues with sexual health and function. This could be an issue for the patient, who is an otherwise healthy 32-year-old male (Ogden et al., 2014).
As noted above, many patients who are obese use eating as a coping mechanism. This could be an issue for this patient as his weight has steadily been increasing over the last two or three years without an identified physical cause (Ogden et al., 2014).
The patient is having issues with health management in that he is not putting any due effort into reducing his weight through diet and exercise.
The patient may have issues with self-perception that come from being overweight (Ogden et al., 2014).
- Copstead, L. C., & Banasik, J. L. (2012) Pathophysiology (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier. ISBN: 9781455726509.
- Landsberg, L., Aronne, L. J., Beilin, L. J., Burke, V., Igel, L. I., Lloyd-Jones, D., & Sowers, J. (2013). Obesity-related hypertension: Pathogenesis, cardiovascular risk, and treatment—A position paper of the The Obesity Society and the American Society of Hypertension. Obesity, 21(1), 8–24.
- Ogden, C. L., Carroll, M. D., Kit, B. K., & Flegal, K. M. (2014). Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. Jama, 311(8), 806–814.
