“The assessment process for patients diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) in a community TB service. Module Title: Assessing Needs of Individuals and Carers”

This essay provides an outline of the assessment process for patients diagnosed with TB in a community TB service. The assessor is a Support Worker for the Tuberculosis (TB) service and cares for patients who have been diagnosed with the disease. TB is an air born mycobacterium infectious

disease, which is transmitted by inhaling droplets of saliva from an infected person when they cough or sneeze (NHS 2014). TB can affect any part of the body but the most common form is the TB of the lungs, which is also the most infectious. The TB infection can be in a latent/dormant form or active form. The latent form of TB presents with no symptoms, where as the active form is the real disease and is symptomatic. Treatment for TB is a minimum of a six months course of four types of antibiotics that are taken together on a daily basis, but drug resistant TB is one to two years depending on resistanc…(short extract)