It is estimated that at any given point of time 40-50 million people are on medication for major sicknesses in India. About 200 million workdays are lost annually due to sickness. India spends about 6% of GDP on health expenditure.
As its definition goes, conditions of the body or mind that cause pain, dysfunction, or distress to the person afflicted can be deemed an illness. There is scientific evidence that our health problems are related to a combination of nutritional deficiency and environmental toxicity. There is also a growing appreciation of the body?s natural physiological capabilities to support health and wellness. Modern medicine or allopathic medicine is now facing the need for a total paradigm shift in its thinking. We need to move from a sickness/ curative perspective to a wellness/ preventative view of what we do.
Wellness or good health has traditionally been viewed as freedom from disease, hence if you were not sick, you were considered healthy. This perspective is fast changing. While everyone agrees that the absence of illness is one part of being well, it doesn?t indicate a state of well-being.
Wellness is a multidimensional state of positive health in an individual as exemplified by the quality of life and a sense of well-being. Wellness is not just freedom from disease, it is more multifaceted involving physical, social, psychological and spiritual parameters.
Wellness is a proactive, preventive approach designed to achieve optimum levels of health, social and emotional functioning. It is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a more successful existence. The wellness revolution is based on giving the body what it needs to support optimal health and quality of life. This movement towards wellness began slowly, but is now rapidly gaining momentum in the past two decades.
A wellness-oriented lifestyle encourages you to adopt habits and behaviours that promote better health and an improved quality of life. It also involves the recognition that you have physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs, with each dimension being necessary for optimal level of functioning. Good nutrition, proper weight control, exercise, and controlling of risk factors such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse play a role in wellness.
Most current health care systems are based on responding to acute problems, urgent needs of patients, and pressing concerns. Testing, diagnosing, relieving symptoms, and expecting a cure are hallmarks of contemporary healthcare. To help people live longer and healthier lives, prevention is key to the success of meeting this objective and that of lowering risks factors. Preventive healthcare involves measures taken to identify and minimise risk factors for disease, improve the course of an existing disease, and screening for early detection of diseases. Preventive healthcare follows a three pronged approach: primary, secondary and tertiary prevention (see box).
So, the need of the hour is holistic wellness, which goes beyond disease cure and towards complete wellbeing. This can happen through a paradigm shift towards integrated and preventive health care. Hence, prevention needs to become an element of every health care interaction.
Ameera Shah is MD & CEO, Metropolis Healthcare
