"The fight to recovery”:

"The fight to recovery”: Adapting the "patient active" concept for stoma nursing practice.   Aims: 1. To clarify the stressful emotions & behavioral changes following creation of stoma. 2. To introduce the “patient active" concept. 3. To describe the use of this concept in stoma nursing.   The "Patient active" concept as a key concept in patient care, offers a therapeutic context for nurse-patient partnership in the fight for recovery. Adjusting to physical body changes is sometimes the most difficult aspect of the illness, resulting in stressful emotions and behavioral changes. Unjustly, most of the ostomates feel ashamed and embarrassed by their stoma, victimized by their new abnormal life style. The word "victim" describes a person who is helpless and doomed. As one of my own patients said: “I am only a stoma patient, nothing more ".   The loss of physical and emotional integrity is crucial to coping with changes, and to the internal curative process. The patient as an active participant should cooperate with the nurse in order to regain new coping strategies and a sense of control. Adapting the "patient active" concept for stoma care practice requires good understanding of the concept, complex communication nursing skills and new ways of thinking.   In this presentation I will discuss how I adapted this concept to my stoma practice with significant improvement in outcomes. My goal is to teach and encourage this method as an accepted and viable treatment option in the future. By combining the empirical data from other stoma nurses, new stoma treatment protocols can be developed.