Why Preventive Healthcare is Important

Health has a different meaning and importance for different people. Every individual has his/her own definition of what healthy means to them depending upon what their health goals are. With most of us working long hours at the office and most of the jobs involving mental rather than physical strain, we often don’t find time to exercise or watch our diet. This can lead to an early onset of certain lifestyle diseases. Now is the time when the saying ‘Prevention is better than cure’ holds a higher value. Preventive care focuses on identifying, preventing or lessening the effect of a disease as opposed to treating it. Being preventive and cautious about chronic diseases can lead us towards a healthier and a happier life.

Let us discuss the whats and hows of preventive healthcare.

What is Preventive Healthcare?

Preventive care centers around keeping up your health, and setting up your standard health status. This mostly includes immunizations, vaccines, physical assessments, lab work, x-rays and suitable health screenings. During your preventive visit, your physician will identify what tests or screenings are right for you according to your age, gender, and current health status.

Why is it important?

Often we forego the regular health check-ups because we feel fit and healthy, but, we can’t be sure unless we get examined. Time and again we have seen that the most chronic diseases go undetected in their early stages because of the lack of symptoms.

A lot of diseases like breast cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, skin cancer, Sexually Transmitted Infections and cardiovascular diseases can go undetected for a lot of years as they don’t show severe symptoms in the early stages. Therefore, it is always advisable to get regular health check-ups so that these diseases can be detected and prevented earlier on.

There is also a monetary benefit to preventive healthcare. Studies have shown that a dollar spent on prevention saves $7 in healthcare costs. This is the reason that most of the insurances cover preventive health check-ups in their policies, which saves both you and them a lot of money. On the other hand, if such diseases are detected in the later stages, the treatment costs a tremendous amount.

Being detected early on or knowing that you might be at risk for a disease gives you ample time to adjust your eating habits, lifestyle and work out according to the symptoms. It gives you a chance to beat the disease and avoid it altogether.

Another reason to follow-up on your check-ups is that if you have a family history of any of the chronic diseases, there is a higher risk of you getting it early on in life.

How often should you get regular check-ups

The biggest question in preventive healthcare is that how often do I need to get health check-ups. It totally depends on your age and your current health status. Here are some timelines that you could follow:

• If you’re under 30 years and healthy you should get a health check-up done every 2–3 years.
• If you’re between 30–50 years, you should get a health check-up done every alternate year. It further depends on your lifestyle and habits.
• If you’re above 50 years, you should get a health check-up every year as you are prone to a number of health issues.

These health check-ups help build your medical history which further has measurable outcomes for vital functions. The frequency of check-ups may vary for different people depending on their health and whether they suffer from any chronic diseases. In summary, our age, health, family history and way of life significantly characterizes how frequently we need to go for checkups.

We are so occupied with our day to day lives that we regularly overlook how critical good health is. Good health is the biggest gift you can give to yourself and your loved ones. You should take an initiative where you schedule health check-ups for yourself and your family. Avoiding tobacco use, maintaining your proper weight, regular exercise and other steps can also significantly reduce your chances for illness or premature death. Keep reminding yourself of this health mantra “Health Today is Happiness Tomorrow.”

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