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Educare

Educare

DICIEMBRE 2003 N° 3 Volumen 1

Quality of life of individuals who have had a cerebrovascular accident or stroke from the perspective of complexity

Section: TEACHING TO LEARN

Authors

Elisa Cartagena de la Peña

Position

Enfermera. Bachelor of Nursing for Hogeschool Zeeland. Profesora Titular de Enfermería Médico-Quirúrgica en la Universidad de Alicante.

Contact address

Escuela de Enfermería. Universidad de Alicante. Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig, s/n. 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante.

Contact email: Elisa.Cartagena@ua.es

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the quality of life of patients that have had a stroke using the following theories: General Systems Theory, Chaos Theory, and Complexity Theory, as an answer to this type of neurological alteration. The complex functioning of the human body causes the individual to experience a state of maximal entropy (disorder and chaos), which will result in motor and/or sensitive deficit and is the principal cause of disability and incapacity in the body, to reach at a later stage a state of maximal neguentropy. The fundament of this analysis is based on the personal clinical experience I have acquired through several years of caring for these patients and also to a research initiative that basically determines the circumstances that cause these patients the greatest disabilities and, thus, have an impact on their quality of life, as well as the complaints that are most commonly reported to the nursing professional during follow-up visits. And lastly, their new self-organisation from an inter and transdisciplinary approach.

Keywords:

quality of life; cerebrovascular accident (stroke); complexitynursing

Versión en Español

Título:

La calidad de vida de las personas que han sufrido un Accidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC) desde la perspectiva de la complejidad