Disease Prevention

Disease prevention by regular physical activity has become more and more important. Its significance has been shown in various studies. Epidemiological and naturalistic as well as experimental studies demonstrate the risk-reducing and health-enhancing effects of regular physical activity. In particular, Yoga, aerobic and Zumba training seems to be effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases. The psychological benefits of physical activities are decreasing negative emotional states (e.g., anxiety) and increasing positive emotional states (e.g., vigor).

Whereas the effect of exercise on physical health can be explained by adaptation processes of the metabolic and cardiovascular system, the effects on mental health remain unexplained. Different kinds of hypotheses assume physiological (e.g., thermoregulation, endorphins), psychological (e.g., attention distraction, states of flow), or rather unspecific mechanisms (e.g., effort justification). Further research is needed to enlighten these mechanisms. However, it can be stated that physical exercise is an appropriate means for health promotion in most cases.

Health promotion and disease prevention along with effective patient education are essential components of practice for PAs in all settings. Providers should perceive all interactions with patients as potential opportunities to implement a positive behavioral change in unhealthy behaviors. Starting with a meticulous history and physical examination that identify an individual’s risk or evidence of preventable disease, PAs should develop a strategy to implement all recommended interventions that are appropriate for the patient’s age and gender. Behavioral modification and patient education should consider unique circumstances and the patient’s readiness to adopt healthier lifestyles within a continuum of change.

Motivational interviewing strategies should be implemented to improve behavioral change outcomes. Health promotion and disease prevention strategies should be directed not only at individual patients but also at the community as a whole. Working with community groups and organizations to help provide a consistent message to the public on health promotion topics will provide reinforcement to the individual patient. Increasing exercise, appropriate diet, and smoking cessation along with immunizations targeted screening histories, and examinations represent the mainstay of any successful health-promotion and disease-prevention effort.

Health promotion and disease prevention programs typically focus on enhancing wellness within one or more of these three health domains. Wellness becomes a philosophy of life that utilizes health promotion and disease prevention strategies to achieve the goal of optimal aging. Optimal aging implies maximizing one’s ability to function across physical, psychological, and social domains to one’s satisfaction and despite one’s medical conditions. The three overarching domains of physical, psychological, and social health are often further divided into dimensions.  Frequently quoted view of wellness as a process with six interconnected wellness dimensions: physical, emotional, spiritual, social, occupational/vocational, and intellectual  Wellness is generally accepted as a multidimensional entity, with the inclusion of factors associated with physical, psychological, and social health making intuitive sense.

Even when exposure risk is minimal, it’s always a good idea to take reasonable precautions to help prevent the spread of disease in the workplace, at home and in the community at large.

Pathogens can be transmitted through various means: airborne through coughing or sneezing, contaminated food sources, bodily fluids and secretions, and physical or sexual contact. Sanitary and sterile conditions are paramount in places where food is prepared and in medical offices or hospitals. It’s vital to remain personally vigilant against illness and infectious disease. You may want to reduce your silent inflammation that we all have to prevent disease and go for a health screening as well. In the meantime, here are several ways to reduce the odds of contracting sickness:

• Regularly wash hands with clean, warm to hot water.
• Maintain good hygiene with bathing and toilet habits.
• Smell-test and examine food before enjoying your meal. When in doubt, throw it out.
• Be familiar with foods that are recalled from store shelves due to links to infectious diseases and know how to discard them from your home.
• Wash foods for cooking before enjoying them, including vegetables, fruits, and poultry, such as, chicken.
• Take the right over-the-counter medicines (OTC), get rest, and drink plenty of fluids when sick. If obtaining OTC’s, it’s best to ask your physician or pharmacist for their recommendation.
• Avoid contact if at all possible with people who have symptoms or signs of illness.
• Stay home if you are sick.
• Do not delay in seeing your physician if your symptoms or signs get worse or don’t abate.
• Keep your living quarters and workspace clean and disinfected.
• Avoid contact with common vectors of infectious disease: including flies, mosquitos, and ticks.
• If you notice flu-like symptoms, know that these symptoms are also linked to foodborne illness which may lead to an infection. Be particularly mindful of this if you are ill, elderly or immune system compromised.

 Vaccination: When a certain percentage of the population is immunized against a contagious disease (like the flu), everyone benefits from herd or community immunity, including those who are not candidates for immunization. Preventable diseases that seem to have largely been eradicated re-emerge when vaccination rates drop. Researchers are also looking into possible declines in vaccine potency.

Respiratory hygiene: This includes:

• Covering one’s mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing and promptly disposing of soiled tissues
• Keeping a distance of at least 3 feet from someone with symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, fever or vomiting
• Wearing surgical masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). For example, in certain workplaces (e.g., health care, hazardous waste cleanup, and disposal, emergency response), PPE such as gloves, face pieces, respirators, and bodysuits are used to prevent the spread of infection.

Additional recommended practices include:

• Disinfecting surfaces such as countertops, phones, and door handles
• Training, practice, and observation related to donning and doffing PPE

 Universal Precautions

Universal precautions include:

• Flushing mucous membranes immediately after contact with blood or OPIM or PPE removal
• Not eating, drinking, smoking, applying cosmetics or lip balm, or handling contact lenses in areas where there is a reasonable likelihood of occupational exposure to blood or OPIM
• Placing all intact needles and sharp objects in puncture-resistant, labeled, leak-proof containers
• Disposing of any potentially contaminated waste in sealable bio-hazardous waste bags and containers

 Standard Precautions

Standard precautions are based on the principle that all blood, body fluids, secretions and excretions (except sweat), non-intact skin and mucous membranes may contain transmissible infectious agents. Similar to universal precautions, standard precautions include hand hygiene, gloves, gown, mask, eye protection, total face shield, and safe injection practices.

Gloves should be worn whenever there is the likelihood of contact with blood, non-intact skin, mucous membranes or OPIM, and when handling or touching contaminated items or surfaces. Disposable gloves and mouthpieces should not be washed or decontaminated for reuse.

Some of these measures may be perceived as an over-abundance of caution. However, if everyone does their part to help prevent the spread of disease, personal well-being, work and school absence rolls, over-burdened health care facilities, and cost-benefit analyses should reflect favorable results.

• Activities designed to protect patients and other members of the public from actual or potential health threats and their harmful consequences.
• Disease prevention covers measures not only to prevent the occurrence of disease, such as risk factor reduction but also to arrest its progress and reduce its consequences once established

Levels of Prevention:-

The concept of prevention is best defined in terms of levels of prevention.

1. Primordial prevention
2. Primary Prevention
3. Secondary prevention
4. Tertiary prevention
5. Quaternary prevention

1. Primordial Prevention –

It consists of actions and measures that inhibit the emergence and establishment of environmental, economic, social and behavioral conditions, cultural patterns of living known to increase the risk of disease

• Mainly associated with chronic diseases
• Intervention – Individual and mass education
• Has to start in childhood when health risk behavior begins

Examples of Primordial prevention –

National program and policies on :

• Food and Nutrition
• Against smoking and drugs
• To promote regular physical activity

Responsibility for Primordial prevention –

• Parents, Teachers and Peers group: Imparting health education
• Government: Legislating and enacting laws
• Professional and non-professional organizations
• Industry
• Hospitals, Health practitioners and health care workers

2. Primary Prevention –

• The action was taken prior to the onset of disease, which removes the possibility that a disease will ever occur
• Intervention – Pre-pathogenesis stage of the disease
• Concept of positive health – An acceptable level of health that will enable every individual to lead a socially and economically productive life
• Approaches for primary prevention of chronic diseases :

Population (mass) strategy –

Directed at whole population irrespective of individual risk levels

Directed towards socio-economic, behavioral and lifestyle changes

High-risk strategy –

To  individual at special risk

Population approach –

High-risk approach –

Achievements of primary prevention –

Controlling disease like cholera, typhoid, plague, dysentery, and T.B., by raising the standard of living

Holistic approach

Modes of intervention :

• Health promotion
• Specific protection

Health promotion –

Process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve health

Not directed against any particular disease

Intervention in this area :

• Health education
• Environmental modifications
• Nutritional interventions
• Lifestyle and behavioral changes

Values in health promotion :

• Equity and social justice
• A holistic definition of health
• Covers a full range of health determinants
• Recognizes the influence of environment on health
• Seeks to enhance people’s social participation
• Involves inter-sectoral Collaboration

3. Secondary prevention –
   • Action which halts the progress of the disease at its incipient stage
   • Intervention – early pre-prognosis stage
   • It is the domain of clinical medicine
   • Modes of intervention :

• Early diagnosis
• Adequate / prompt treatment

Effects :

• Seeks out unrecognized disease
• Provides treatment before irreversible changes occur
• Reverses communicability of the infectious disease
• Protects community

4. Tertiary Prevention

All measures available to reduce or limit impairments and disabilities, minimize sufferings caused by the existing departure of good health, and to promote the patient’s adjustment to irremediable conditions.

Intervention – Late pathogenesis stage

Modes of intervention –

Disability limitation: To prevent or halt the transition of disease of the disease  process from impairment to handicap

Rehabilitation: The combined and coordinated use of medical, educational,  social and vocational measures for training and re-training the individual to the highest possible level of functional ability

Requires cooperation from different sections of society

The action is taken to identify patients at risk of over-medicalization, to protect him from new medical invasion, and to suggest to him interventions, which are ethically acceptable.

Quaternary prevention is the set of health activities to mitigate or avoid the consequences of unnecessary or  excessive intervention of the health system

Quaternary prevention should precedence over any alternative preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic,  as is the practice version ‘primum non-nocere’

Intervention types –

• Do not mistake risk factors with disease
• To avoid check-ups or unnecessary exams
• To avoid technical interventionism in healthcare
• To avoid the indiscriminate use of antibiotics

Conclusion –

• Understanding disease pathology is the first step towards formulating preventive measures
• Prevention can be achieved in any stage of the disease
• Primordial or primary prevention is the most effective and economical
• Disease control is also a part of prevention which is achieved by means of continuous monitoring and surveillance of disease.

One of the best ways to maintain your health is by taking care of yourself. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle and enjoy your old age without being injected with several different kinds of shots, then change your daily lifestyle because even the simplest little healthy modification can cause great benefits.
Though it is difficult to put health and fitness as a top priority in this rat race day and age, it’s best to start with baby steps that will surely peak your health tremendously.

1. Pump up nutrition
2. Get outdoors
3. Ease Stress
4. Stop nose picking
5. Stretching is important
6. Breathe the right way
7. Bathing daily at least once is good
8. Cut your nails regularly
9. Avoid sharing personal items
10. Say no to sugary items
11. Sweat it out
12. Stop worrying
13. Quit smoking
14. Stay safe while having sex
15. Respect your body and yourself
16. Know your risks
17. Maintain a healthy blood pressure
18. Monitor your cholesterol
19. Limit your calories
20. Stay informed about health
21. Maintain a healthy diet
22. Keep your brain active
23. Reduce alcohol intake

Recommended medical check-up

• Yearly check-up (every other year if no health risks)
• Yearly dental exam
• Skin Check
• Cholesterol Check
• Monthly breast self-exams
• Yearly Pap smear/OBGYN visit after the age of 18 or when sexual activity begins
• Mammogram initially by age 40; high risk by age 35
• Colonoscopy initially by age 40; high risk by age 35
• Bone density test

Superfoods that fight disease –

These nutrient-packed foods can help ward off ailments ranging from heart

disease to the common cold. A powerhouse of Fiber, Vitamins, Minerals and  Antioxidants

1. Alfalfa Sprouts
2. Apples
3. Avocados
4. Beets
5. Cranberries / Strawberries / Blackberries
6. Flaxseed
7. Oranges
8. Papayas
9. Pumpkins
10. Quinoa
11. Raspberries
12. Spinach
13. Sweet Potatoes
14. Walnuts
15. Watercress
16. Yogurt
17. Dairy foods
18. Fatty fish
19. Dark leafy greens
20. Whole grains
21. Tomatoes
22. Garlic
23. Grapes
24. Beans / Black beans
25. Eggs
26. Nuts – cashews,
27. Spinach
28. Kiwifruit
29. Broccoli
30. Turmeric
31. Cantaloupe
32. Salmon
33. Oats and barley
34. Carrots
35. Melons
36. Citrus fruits

All above powerhouses are mentioned in our earlier posts/blogs