There is an old saying that, “Prevention is better than cure.” This is true as it saves us from a multitude of problems like taking medicines, going through treatment procedures, and dealing with incurable diseases. But the question is what to do to prevent ourselves from getting sick. Well, the answer lies in ‘Preventive health care.’ Preventive health care as the name suggests deals with the prevention of diseases to avoid the burden of associated risks. It comprises measures for disease prevention.
It is much better to adopt these measures than to cope with the health and financial aspects of diseases including death.
Let’s dive a bit deeper to know what preventive health care means and why it matters.
In simple words, preventive healthcare helps in the early detection of serious diseases and medical problems to avoid the further spread of complications. Also known as routine care, it includes regular screenings of diseases, annual check-ups, tests, immunizations, flu shots, etc.
Preventive healthcare is different from diagnostic care. While the latter is done to know the specific reason behind the manifestation of a symptom or health complication; the former is done in general without any symptoms. It is done to make sure that there are no hidden health complications in the body.
Some of the most common preventive healthcare measures include:
- Annual Check-up: This is to test all the aspects of your health including physical and emotional. This is done every year once, during which all the basic parameters like BP, sugar, etc. are checked.
- Regular examination of body vitals: Regular check-ups of vitals like BP, sugar, cholesterol, thyroid, and Haemoglobin can help you avoid many diseases like cardiovascular diseases, strokes, kidney issues, etc. Based on the results you can make necessary dietary and lifestyle changes to avoid your condition from flaring up later.
- Cancer screenings: Some forms of cancer may show symptoms much later when it becomes very late to cure the disease. For example, breast cancer is quite common in women and so is colon cancer in both genders. Hence, a Mammogram to detect breast cancer and a Colonoscopy to detect colon cancer can help you detect the disease at an early stage and save your life.
- Flu shots and vaccination: Regular flu shots and vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc., are also part of preventive care, taken as a measure to prevent these diseases.
- Mental health screenings: World Health Organization estimates the cases of mental health disorders to be in hundreds of millions all over the world. It may be difficult to know about one’s mental disorders if you have relatively milder symptoms. But a routine check-up will help, and mental health screenings can prove to be a whistle-blower, saving yourself from further complications.
Through preventive health care, you can keep a close eye on your health. It will help you know in which area of your health you need an intervention. And with mild lifestyle changes, you can avoid your health problems from getting bigger. Some of the reasons why preventive health care matters are:
- Preventive healthcare blows the alarm related to your health issues, thus helping you in taking precautionary measures in advance to avoid further degeneration of your health condition.
- It helps you detect serious health issues at an early stage like in the case of cancer, HIV, etc. thus can save your life.
- Though regular check-ups might need some basic financial investment or expenditure, they can save you from massive treatment or surgical fees at a later stage. Most of these check-ups would be covered under your health insurance.
Usually, preventive care measures will immediately let you know if there are any variations in your health from normal standards. For example, anything from your BP, sugar, and cholesterol levels to your weight and mental health can be tracked and can be worked on. This way you would be more cautious about your lifestyle, diet, and health goals, thus improving the overall quality of your life.
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