Self-management of Older Persons with Hypertension

Abstract

Hypertension is a global public-health problem and a cause of many complications impacting the lives of elderly people around the world. Such complications, however, can be prevented by proper self-management. Nowadays, with environmental, social, and cultural influences, people’s behaviors and way of life have changed. This results in a high number of people with hypertension in many countries, with that number increasing every year as can be seen from the morbidity rate and death of patients with hypertension in various statistics reports from various countries, including Thailand. Moreover, it is found that elderly people are more likely to suffer from hypertension than people in other age group because of deterioration and lack of elasticity of the blood vessels caused by the aging process.

Self-management refers to actions or practices which promote health of a person so that they can live chronic diseases by managing and controlling them. Both patients and health personnel need to be involved in health care. In addition, patients should have good and lifelong self-management, which includes 1. Medical management: exercising, taking medication, selecting good food, and attending doctor appointment; 2. Role management: changing one’s way of life while maintaining appropriate roles and responsibilities; and 3. Emotion management: managing stress, anxiety, and any emotional instability which may be caused by the disease(s). Appropriate self-management reflects one’s ability to manage and control the disease itself and the severity of chronic disease. Only the patient can take care of their daily while suffering a disease. This can be done by practicing skills necessary for living their life—this could either be as long as they suffer from the disease(s) or as long as they live. If elderly people with hypertension can manage to live their lives in ways that promote good health, they will be able to reduce the severity of the disease and complications. In due course, they will be able to peacefully live with a chronic disease by employing six self-management skills, including problem solving, decision making, seeking and utilizing useful recourses, building good relationships with health personnel, planning way of living, and appropriately applying self-management knowledge to each individual in ways that are in line with the three aspects of self-management.

It can be found that health personnel, for example, professional nurses or public-health officers should plan to promote and be able to give proper advice regarding self-management and healthy activities which elderly people with hypertension may choose to do to promote good health. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a self-management program to change health-related behaviors of elderly people with hypertension.