Preventive Care

What is Preventive Medicine?

Preventive medicine is the practice of promoting preventive health care to improve patient well-being. The goal is to ultimately prevent disease, disability, and death.

We  professionally evaluate and administer preventive treatment that is derived from possessing expertise in a broad range of health care skills, including:

• Homeopathy

• Prevention of diseases

• Prevention and control

• Epidemic genius

• Biostatistics

• Epidemiology

• Planning and evaluation of health services

• Management of health care organizations

• Research

• Preventive medicine practice in clinical settings

We apply our expertise in medicine, social, economic, and behavioural sciences to improve the health and quality of life for individuals, families, communities and populations through disease prevention and health promotion.

Prevention is always better than cure

Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for disease prevention.Disease and disability are affected by environmental factors, genetic predisposition, disease agents, and lifestyle choices, and are dynamic processes which begin before individuals realize they are affected. Disease prevention relies on anticipatory actions that can be categorized as primal, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.

Preventive healthcare is especially important given the worldwide rise in prevalence of chronic diseases and deaths from these diseases. There are many methods for prevention of disease. One of them is prevention of teenage smoking through information giving.It is recommended that adults and children aim to visit their doctor for regular check-ups, even if they feel healthy, to perform disease screening, identify risk factors for disease, discuss tips for a healthy and balanced lifestyle, stay up to date with immunizations and boosters, and maintain a good relationship with a healthcare provider. In pediatrics, some common examples of primary prevention are encouraging parents to turn down the temperature of their home water heater in order to avoid scalding burns, encouraging children to wear bicycle helmets, and suggesting that people use the Air Quality Index (AQI) to check the level of pollution in the outside air before engaging in sporting activities. Some common disease screenings include checking for hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperglycemia (high blood sugar, a risk factor for diabetes mellitus), hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol), screening for colon cancer, depression, HIV and other common types of sexually transmitted disease such as chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhoea, mammography (to screen for breast cancer), colorectal cancer screening, a Pap test (to check for cervical cancer), and screening for osteoporosis. Genetic testing can also be performed to screen for mutations that cause genetic disorders or predisposition to certain diseases such as breast or ovarian cancer.[10] 

Primal and primordial preventions

Primal prevention is health promotion par excellence. New knowledge in molecular biology, in particular epigenetic, points to how much affective as well as physical environment during fetal and newborn life may determine adult health. This way of promoting health consists mainly in providing future parents with pertinent, unbiased information on primal health and supporting them during their child's primal period of life (i.e., "from conception to first anniversary" according to definition by the Primal Health Research Centre, London). This includes adequate parental leave, ideally for both parents, with kin caregiving and financial help where needed.

Primordial prevention refers to all measures designed to prevent the development of risk factors in the first place, early in life, and even preconception, as Ruth A. Etzel has described it "all population-level actions and measures that inhibit the emergence and establishment of adverse environmental, economic, and social conditions". This could be reducing air pollution or prohibiting endocrine-disrupting chemicals in food-handling equipment and food contact materials.

Primary prevention

Primary prevention consists of traditional health promotion and "specific protection." Health promotion activities include prevention strategies such as health education and lifestyle medicine, and are current, non-clinical life choices such as eating nutritious meals and exercising daily, that prevent lifestyle-related medical conditions, improve the quality of life, and create a sense of overall well-being. Preventing disease and creating overall well-being prolongs life expectancy. Health-promotional activities do not target a specific disease or condition but rather promote health and well-being on a very general level. On the other hand, specific protection targets a type or group of diseases and complements the goals of health promotion.

Food is the most basic tool in preventive health care. The 2011 National Health Interview Survey performed by the Centers for Disease Control was the first national survey to include questions about ability to pay for food. There are many who have difficulty with paying for food, medicine, or both is a big problem. 

Scientific advancements in genetics have contributed to the knowledge of hereditary diseases and have facilitated progress in specific protective measures in individuals who are carriers of a disease gene or have an increased predisposition to a specific disease. Genetic testing has allowed physicians to make quicker and more accurate diagnoses and has allowed for tailored treatments or personalized medicine. Similarly, specific protective measures such as water purification, sewage treatment, and the development of personal hygienic routines, such as regular hand-washing, safe sex to prevent sexually transmitted infections, became mainstream upon the discovery of infectious disease agents and have decreased the rates of communicable diseases which are spread in unsanitary conditions.

Secondary prevention

Secondary prevention deals with latent diseases and attempts to prevent an asymptomatic disease from progressing to symptomatic disease. Certain diseases can be classified as primary or secondary. This depends on definitions of what constitutes a disease, though, in general, primary prevention addresses the root cause of a disease or injury whereas secondary prevention aims to detect and treat a disease early on. Secondary prevention consists of "early diagnosis and prompt treatment" to contain the disease and prevent its spread to other individuals, and "disability limitation" to prevent potential future complications and disabilities from the disease. 

Preventative measures like vaccines and medical screenings are also important. Using PPE properly and getting the recommended vaccines and screenings can help decrease the spread of respiratory diseases, protecting the healthcare workers as well as their patients.

Tertiary prevention

Finally, tertiary prevention attempts to reduce the damage caused by symptomatic disease by focusing on mental, physical, and social rehabilitation. Unlike secondary prevention, which aims to prevent disability, the objective of tertiary prevention is to maximize the remaining capabilities and functions of an already disabled patient. Goals of tertiary prevention include: preventing pain and damage, halting progression and complications from disease, and restoring the health and functions of the individuals affected by disease.