• Question: What is the most life threatening disease you have come across and how did you deal with it?

    Asked by bobsta98 to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I have worked with people who are so obese that they are at extremely high risk for heart attacks or stroke and their doctor has told them that unless they lose weight they will possibly not live much longer. As you can imagine, this is a pretty scary time for those people – they know they NEED to change, they maybe even WANT to change, but they are finding it hard to actually DO the changing. So, along with dieticians who help them learn about a healthier diet, my job is to help these people remain motivated to make changes to their lifestyle and especially to help them become more physically active – even if that starts as just a walk around the block at first.

    • Photo: Jenni Tilley

      Jenni Tilley answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      When a relative had cancer I was pretty scared but we all kept a positive mental attitude and tried to live our lives as normally as possible. The wonder of modern science is that we have lots of ways to treat scary, life threatening diseases, or at least have a go at treating it. Definately taught me to live my life to the full though

    • Photo: Stuart Mourton

      Stuart Mourton answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      none of the people i have worked with have had what you would clasify as a life threatening disease, so it’s not something i’ve had to deal with in a professional capacity. Working with individuals with illness’, disabilities or dieases can be hugely rewarding though. Some changes may have to be made in the way you work with individuals but you find the difficulties you encounter are far outweighed by the pride and happiness you feal when you help these people.

    • Photo: Mark Burnley

      Mark Burnley answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      My wife is doing a lot of work with falls patients, and they have all sorts of diesease that make them likely to fall over and fracture bones, that’s probably as close as I have come to that though, because I don’t really study disease states.

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