Using Trevor’s and Dahlia’s Accounts from Activity 2.3 in Learning Guide 2, Describe How the Biomedical, and Social Models of Health, Might Inform Different Approaches to Improving or Maintaining Trevor’s Quality of Life .

In order to answer this question, I am firstly going to describe, in detail, the Biomedical and Social Models of Health. The 2 approaches are very different, and from a caring perspective, are both as important as one another when putting a care plan in place for service users such as Trevor .

Models of illness are used to analyse how illness arises and to predict what treatment might be effective.; Most models are implicit and not formally described.In the context of health and illness, a model will specify what factors are of importance in determining whether a person is ill, (and conversely, by implication, what factors are not relevant). It will also specify the nature of the interrelationships between these factors and being ill (Wade, 2009 )

I will begin by talking about the Biomedical Model of Health . This model is considered to be the epitome of scientific, objective and reproducible medications. The main features of this model, are that health is ‘absence of disease’ and being ‘functionally fit’ . Doctors and specialists can diagnose, treat and cure. They can explain the disease or illness, within a biological network and this emphases the nature of the disease. The Biological Model provides diagnostic categories, provides an easy identifiable structure, provides effective treatment and produces experts who highly specialise in their field (The Open University, 2012)

The biomedical model, which primarily assumes that all illness arise from within the body and is caused by an initial dysfunction of a part of the body, is the current dominant model of illness. However, Biomedicine is criticised for omitting things such as lifestyle behaviours, individual needs and social support/choice. These are things that impact individual experience on Health & Social Care .

I will now discuss the Social Model of Health. This model focuses on the social distribution of health and illness, i.e., death rates can vary greatly between social classes . This

References: Barwais, F. (2011) ‘Definitions of Wellbeing,Quality of Life and Wellness’,National Wellness Institute of Australia [Online]. Available at http://nwia.idwellness.org/2011/02/28/definitions-of-wellbeing-quality-of-life-and-wellness/ Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1991) ‘A Theory of Human Need’ in Exploring Health, Social Care and Wellbeing, Chapter 1, Milton Keynes, The Open University Stow College, (1992) ‘Health:Medical and Social Models of Health’, Stow College Management and general Education Department [Online]. Available at http://socialscience.stow.ac.uk/rab/hnc_health/modelsofhealth.htm (Accessed 29 October 2012) The Open University, (2012)‘Models of health care delivery: TheBiomedical Model’, Learning Space [online]. Available at http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=398060&section=1.6 (Accessed 1 November 2012) The Open University, (2012) ‘Activity 2.3: Biomedicine and holism’, K217 Learning Guide 2[Online]. Available at http://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=136246&section=2.3 The Open University (2010) K217 Adult Health and Social Care and Wellbeing, Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Health and Illness’, Milton Keynes, The Open University Wade, D, (2009) ‘Holistic Health Care, What is it, and how can we achieve it?’ [Online]. Available at http://www.noc.nhs.uk/oce/researcheducation/documents/HolisticHealthCare09-11-15.pdf (Accessed 7 November 2012 )