Barriers to and facilitators of older adult’s adherence to health recommendations: Towards an EngAging two-way health communication

Non-adherence to health recommendations (e.g. medical prescriptions) presents potential costs for healthcare, which could be prevented or mitigated. This is often attributed to a person’s rational choice, to not adhere. However, this may also be determined by individual and contextual factors implied in the recommendations communication process. In accordance, this chapter focuses specifically on barriers to and facilitators of adherence to recommendations and engagement with the healthcare process, particularly concerning the communication between health professionals and patients. For this, the authors present examples of engagement increment through different degrees of participation, from a one-way/directive towards a two-way/engaging communication process. This focuses specifically on a vulnerable population group with increasing healthcare needs: older adults. Future possibilities for two-way engaging communications are discussed, aimed at promoting increased adherence to health recommendations and people’s self-regulation of their own health.

Aspects Related to Venous Ulcer Healing and its Influence on Quality of Life

Nowadays, the varicose ulcers (VUs) are one of the most worrying leg ulcers and are an important problem in global public health, with high costs related to the treatment and its complications. Moreover, the quality of life (QOL) of the patient could be affected by pain, sleep disorders, functional impairment, depression and isolation. The VUs patient care is complex and it is necessary to know the aspects that contribute to the healing process for developing effective strategies. The members of the multidisciplinary health team should identify sociodemographic, clinical and care aspects that interfere in tissue repair and therefore impacting the QOL. Self-efficacy, adherence to treatment and self-esteem are other important aspects also related to healing and QOL, with implications for health care and the multidisciplinary team. To sum up, the use of multidisciplinary protocols allows the systematization of care for people with VUs in order to standardize therapeutic interventions with the aim to decrease the healing process time and, as a consequence, to improve the QOL.