Preventive Healthcare

Prevention is Better Than Cure

It is applicable to our health more than any other aspects of our lives. Health is wealth, better we protect our health similar to our wealth if not more. The following article briefly outlines the preventive medicine usage for protecting your health.

Preventive medicine focuses on prevention of disease rather than treatment. There are three types of preventive medicines[zotpressInTextBib style=”apa” sort=”ASC”]. They are:

·         Primary Prevention keeps the disease process from becoming established by eliminating causes of disease or increasing resistance to disease.

·         Secondary prevention interrupts the disease process before it becomes symptomatic.

·         Tertiary prevention limits the physical and social consequences of symptomatic disease.

Primary Prevention

The primary prevention refers to the guidelines to be followed that fosters wellness and reduces likelihood of disease, disability and premature death in a nonspecific manner. Primary prevention also refers to specific protection against inception of disease.

Doing physical activities, prudent dietary practices (eg: changing to a diet low in saturated and trans fats), smoking avoidance or cessation, mitigation of stress and immunizations are some of the example of primary prevention.

Primary Prevention : Diet & Exercise

Secondary Prevention

The Secondary prevention refers to detection and management of pre-symptomatic diseases, and the prevention of its progression to symptomatic diseases. Diagnosis and treatment of pre-symptomatic through screening programs plays important role in secondary prevention.

Laboratories, diagnostic centers, clinics and hospitals do the screenings required through lab tests snd scanning in association with doctor consultation. Some of the examples for screening include:

• Cancer screening through Mammography and colonoscopy etc.
• Cardiac risk through Lipid testing, Blood pressure, ECG, and TMT etc.
• Diabetic screening through Glucose tests, and HBA1C etc.
• Renal functionality through tests for Urea, creatinine and BUN etc.
• Liver functionality through SGOT, and SGPT etc.

Secondary Prevention : Mammography

Tertiary Prevention

Tertiary prevention refers to the treatment of symptomatic disease in an effort to prevent its progression to disability, or premature death.

Some of the examples are the prevention of early cancer from metastasizing, or the prevention of coronary disease from inducing a myocardial infarction or heart failure. Rehabilitation is also one example for tertiary prevention because rehabilitation helps to preserve and restore functional ability, and thus prevent degeneration.

Tertiary Prevention : Physiotherapy

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Employee Health Check-Ups

World Health Organization (WHO) has defined health, as “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Preventive health care is very important determinant of health since prevention means avoiding or slowing the course of disease, which is essential for good quality of life.

The diseases cause absenteeism at work place and early retirement from jobs. If diseases are not prevented, they lower the labor productivity and organizations have to bear the burden.

As per Indian Factory Act 1948, both regular and contract employees are subjected to undergo health checkups before employment and periodic health checkups after joining organization. The health checkups required for employee fit are called “Pre Employment Health Checkup”. The periodic health checkups can be defined based on periodic interval and type of employees like “Annual Health Checkup” for year and “Executive Health Checkup” for company executives.

Industry Specific Health Checkups

Medical checkups vary as per the work environment. These health checkups generally defined by the medical officer in consultation with employer.

Food handlers are people who are involved in processing, manufacturing, production, serving any foodstuff including water and beverages. They are prescribed for food handler health checkups that include mainly Skin diseases and contagious diseases.

Drivers and operators of machinery / equipment are recommended for health checkups mainly involving vision tests.

Those work in hazardous environments like fabrication shop, Paint shop, and welding shop etc. are recommended for Chest X-Ray and other relevant medical tests.

Periodicity of Health Checkup

Pre Employment health checkups are done before employee joining organization. Periodicity of periodic health checkups is decided by employee age, position in organization, working environment and industry.

Executives of company are recommended for “Annual Health Checkup”. Food handlers may be recommended for health checkup twice in a year.