The famous saying: “Prevention is better than cure”, is totally applicable to the practice of Preventative Health.
Medicine is the science of diagnosis and treatment of diseases or other damages that may occur on the body or mind; and its main objective is to maintain health.
Medicine has two branches or divisions:
- Preventive Medicine: It is defined as the set of actions aimed at preventing diseases
- Healing Medicine: Refers to the set of medical actions aimed at treating and curing diseases
Anyone can look around and notice that there is a large number of people over 70, in excellent health, a fact that was not so common some time ago. This is due to the interesting work of dissemination of preventive medicine, which has been carried out for some years; Regarding their good results, doctors are rushing to clarify that there has not been an increase in the duration of life, but there was a considerable increase in life expectancy.
Regarding the diffusion of preventive medicine, there is another relevant division and it occurs between:
- Actions directed to the monitoring and control of water, air and soil pollution
- The actions directed to the control of food contamination
- The actions directed to the protection of the health of the individual
The dissemination work on the environment, intends that both the physical and social environment be modified; and the promotion of health aimed at the individual aims to educate, modify their harmful behavior, and reduce the risk of disease.
In turn, preventive medicine has three levels:
- Primary Prevention: Try to reduce the likelihood of disease
- Secondary Prevention: Acts when the primary did not exist or failed
- Tertiary Prevention: Intervenes when the disease is established in order to delay its course
What are the methods of preventive medicine?
Among the most used methods to prevent the onset of diseases we find:
- Preventive Immunizations: Through vaccination, serum, etc.
- Chemoprevention: Administration of antibiotics, aspirins, biological products, etc.
- Health Education: Through schools, clinical centers, and media
One of the most effective methods at present, is Health Education, because the main causes of illness or death, these days, depend on the lifestyle of an individual and they are:
- Diet
- Smoking
- Alcohol and drugs
- Use of cars and motorcycles
Because of all this, the existence and evolution of Preventive Medicine and Health Education is very important , in order to avoid the emergence of diseases and accidents, to find a good treatment for the conditions in time, and above all, to raise awareness of the people and achieve a change of attitude, so that the irreversible can be reversible.
