The nurse is assessing a patient who was recently divorced and is now living in a temporary shelter after losing her home in a hurricane. Which finding indicates that the patient is experiencing allostatic load?
A) The patient is in a state of exhaustion.
B) The patient is using available resources to respond to stress.
C) The patient is making healthy lifestyle choices.
D) The patient is in an internal state of balance.
A) The patient is in a state of exhaustion.
Explanation: A) The individual experiences multiple stressors that may be novel or to which the individual cannot attach appropriate meaning. The experience of uncertain or novel events puts the individual in the position of experiencing repeated stressful events, each of which evokes a stress response. The mechanisms involved in responding to stress can cause the individual to experience a state of exhaustion. These mechanisms may also fail to cease function after removal of the stressing event, or falter in providing a response to the initial event. When these situations occur, the individual is experiencing a state of allostatic load.
B) In allostatic load, adaptation fails, and the individual is no longer capable of adapting or adjusting to environmental events. The stress response is inappropriately prolonged, and the normative suppressing mechanisms fail.
C) In allostatic load, adaptation fails, and the individual is no longer capable of adapting or adjusting to environmental events. The stress response is inappropriately prolonged, and the normative suppressing mechanisms fail.
D) In allostatic load, the individual's physiologic response is inadequate to meet the imposed demands. This leads to a process of secondary activation of other mediator mechanisms in an attempt to respond to the demand.
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