Case Analysis: Sjogrens Syndrome

The patient is an 80-year-old female who lives in a small town in Western North Carolina. She is one of nine siblings, all of who have died from heart problems. The patient lives alone but is functional and able to conduct routine daily activities. She spends her time reading books on religion. She considers herself to be a sociable person. She is currently seeking religious explanations to help her cope with life and death issues.

The patient complains of multiple physical ailments which are both real and imagined. She wears a pacemaker and fears inevitable death similar to her siblings. Her fear of death is resulting in feelings of terror. To alleviate her fears she makes many visits to the hospital emergency room, where she is examined, found free of medical causes of her complaints, and sent home. Despite this medical assurance, the patient continued to complain of ongoing and severe fatigue and joint pain, with dryness of the mouth and eyes. These ongoing symptoms range in severity on a daily basis. Each time the pain escalates and exacerbates her fears of dying, the patient again returns to the emergency room. Doctors have concluded that aging is a

. . .
cannot be cured, findings of octreotide therapy are positive. Octreotide treatment of a patient resulted in dramatic improvement with a lack of fatigue and ocular and oral symptoms. The improvement was sustained for 15 months (follow-up). While salivary flow remained reduced it was believed to be due to diuretic therapy that the patient was receiving. It was concluded that this treatment was effective. Behavior Therapy Behavior therapy offers many techniques that can deal effectively with emotional fears and physical pain that interact with each other. Relaxation training with related methods can help the patient relax muscles and their mental state. Basic procedures are easily learned and can be practiced daily. Relaxation methods can be used along with other behavioral techniques such as biofeedback-induced relaxation, hypnosis, meditation, positive imagery, positive reinforcement, systematic desensitization, flooding, self-management programs, and autogenic training or teaching the patient to control bodily and imagined functions with autosuggestion. Systematic desensitization is used for treatment of anxiety. This technique is based on the principle of classical conditioning and it is widely used to help patients
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sjogren's Syndrome, Therapy Cognitive, North Carolina, Aspirin NSAIDS, Therapy Behavior, Family Therapy, Erikson Erikson, Syndrome Typical, sjogren's syndrome, cognitive therapy, family therapy, Syndrome Information, Medicine Sjogren's, physical symptoms, help patient, relaxation training, anxiety depression, dry mouth, cognitive distortions, mouth eyes, dry mouth eyes, family therapy elderly, negative view self, techniques biofeedback-induced relaxation, wears pacemaker fears,
Approximate Word count = 2543
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)