Health and Social Care

P4: identify two service users and any specific dilatory needs for high cholesterol and anorexia.

High cholesterol

According to statics researches nearly half of all American adults have high cholesterol. Moreover, not all cholesterol is bad; in fact, your body makes its own and uses it for many important functions, such as producing cells and certain hormones. However, too much of this waxy substance in the blood clogs the arteries.

My Case study for high cholesterol

Mrs Dawn assumed that she was approaching her forties in excellent health. She had always eaten a fairly healthy diet, high in fruit and vegetables with plenty of chicken and fish and was a trim 9 stone. She said “I had also kept active with swimming twice a week, tennis in the summer and long and regular walks – I felt really well and healthy but as I was nearly 40, I decided to take advantage of the local GP’s health check,” explains Dawn.

Like many GPs, Dawn’s local practice ran all sorts of illness prevention campaigns and was targeting cardiovascular disease in the 40 to 50 year olds in the area. Mrs Dawn received an invitation to go along for a heart and lung 40-year service. “A bit like having a 40,000 mile car service,” laughs Mrs Dawn.

However, when Mrs Dawn went back to the surgery a week after having several samples of blood taken for different tests, and having an ECG and fitness test, she was not laughing when the doctor told her of the results. “I thought I would breeze in and take away proof that I was fit and healthy but, although my fitness was OK and there was nothing wrong with my heart, my blood cholesterol was sky high,” said Mrs Dawn.

“My total cholesterol was nearly 10 millimoles per litre of blood and my LDL cholesterol was over 6 millimoles per litre,” says Dawn. “Even I knew that that was very high,” she adds.

As Dawn was not overweight and did not smoke, there was very little she could do to change her cholesterol by changing her lifestyle. Her GP explained...