Navigating the Challenges of Autism Care

Wider context of the trigger for this family member e.g. autism, breast awareness, prevalence, adolescence, funding, personalised care, autonomy, medication, pain management (you could include some statistics here).

The family member to be focused in this case is Adam who has autism and is showing increased need of support from the family. The case study mentions that Adam is 13 years old which indicates that he has reached the adolescent stage and has become a teenager. The children with autism need increased amount of time to develop adjustment with physical and mental changes in the adolescent stage. This is because without knowledge of puberty changes, the child with autism may develop confusion and fear of the physical alteration that comes with age (Cummins et al., 2020). In case of Adam, it is seen that his mother and sister along with his father has hard time for him to support his care which may have led to the increased rise of confusion in Adam as he lack support to understand the pubertal changes happening in his body. In the UK, it is seen that 1 in every 100 children has autism (healthylondon.org, 2017). Moreover, 1.1% of the population in the UK is found to be autistic (researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk, 2020). This indicates that autism is one of the progressing health disorders in the UK and effective care regarding the people suffering from autism is to be taken so that it can be tackled at the early stage of its progression. Therefore, enhanced care and support for Adam are to be discussed who is suffering from autism so that he can be provided better care to resolve his raised needs in the current situation. It would also ensure his lesser dependence of care on the family members mainly his sister who is facing hard time in managing own self and supporting him. The economic cost of supporting an autistic person for lifetime in the UK is £1.5m (BBC, 2014). This is quite huge and it indicates that due to the need for increased cost of care the parents are unable to care for Adam making them more involved in earning money. It has led them to become dependent on his sister who is not yet working to take care of Adam. This is because it is the opportunity the parents may wish to be used to get time to earn more money in supporting and creating a better future for Adam to buy care intervention for his autism.

References

• autismspeaks.org 2018, Autism in Teens: Helping Your Child Through Puberty, Available at: https://www.autismspeaks.org/expert-opinion/autism-teens-helping-your-child-through-puberty [Accessed on: 19 October 202]
• BBC 2014, Autism costs '£32bn per year' in UK, Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-27742716 [Accessed on: 19 October 202]
• Cummins, C., Pellicano, E. and Crane, L., 2020. Supporting minimally verbal autistic girls with intellectual disabilities through puberty: Perspectives of parents and educators. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 50(7), pp.2439-2448.
• healthylondon.org 2017, Children and young people with autism spectrum disorder, Available at: https://www.healthylondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Children-and-young-people-with-austism-spectrum-disorder-case-for-change-Oct-2017.pdf [Accessed on: 19 October 202]
• researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk 2020, Autism, Available at: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:voF7OI6iThUJ:researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0612/POST-PN-0612.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in [Accessed on: 19 October 202]

Continue your exploration of Navigating Responsibilities and Principles in the NHS Era with our related content.