1. Traditional and Nontraditional Health Care
• Distinguish between traditional and nontraditional forms of
health care and the associated risks/benefits.
• List types of home health tests.
• Describe common medical exam procedures and medical
tests.
• Relate oral health to overall health and discuss good oral
care.
• List their rights as a medical consumer.
• Describe the doctor-patient partnership, including
choosing/evaluating their primary care physician.
• Compare and contrast the different types of health-care
practitioners and health-care facilities.
• Evaluate their role in their own health care, including self-
care.
Chapter Learning Objectives

2. Personalizing Your Health Care
Your Family Health History
•Mapping your family medical history can help
identify health risks you may face in the
future.

3. Health-Care Consumers: Men vs. Women
The genders differ significantly in the way they use
health-care services in the United States.
• Women • Men
• More likely to see a • More likely wait to see a
doctor, take prescription doctor for problems.
drugs, and to be • More prone to back
hospitalized. problems, muscle
• Account for 75% of problems, allergies, and
health care spending. digestive problems.
• More likely to suffer • Less likely to suffer from
from migraines. migraines.
Despite differences, women and men spend similar proportions of
their lifetimes— about 81 percent—free of disability.

4. Personalizing Your Health Care
Self-Care
•Most people do treat themselves for minor problems.
• Aspirin for a headache, chicken soup or orange juice
for a cold, or a weekend trip to unwind from stress.
•100’s of home tests are available to help consumers
monitor everything from fertility to blood pressure to
cholesterol levels.
• Examples: Pregnancy, fertility, blood pressure,
cholesterol, urinary tract infection, and HIV infection.

5. Personalizing Your Health Care
Oral Health
Proper and regular brushing and flossing is the
best way to prevent loosing teeth to decay and gum
disease.
Fact
• Research indicates links between
chronic oral infection and:
• Heart disease
• Lung disease
• Stroke
• Low birthweight and premature births
• Diabetes

6. Personalizing Your Health Care
Oral Health
•Plaque
• Sticky film of bacteria that forms on teeth.
•Gum, or Periodontal Disease
• Inflammation (due to plaque) that attacks the gum and
bone that hold your teeth in place.
•Gingivitis
• Inflammation of the gums.
•Periodontitis
• Severe gum disease in which the tooth root becomes
infected.

7. Personalizing Your Health Care
Doctor-Patient Partnership
•Because physicians have less time and less
autonomy, patients today must do more.
• Learn more about your body.
• Learn more about medical conditions or
problems you develop.
• Learn more about treatment options.
•Where can you find more information?
• Online services, patient advocacy, and
support organizations.

8. Evaluating Online Health Sites
Check the Creator
Look for Check Website
Possible Bias Creation &
Updates
Consider the Check the
Author References

9. Primary Care Physician
• Your medical exam will include recording a
medical history, any complaints you have, and
your current lifestyle.
• Examinations may include: head, neck, chest,
abdomen, rectum and genitals, pelvic region,
extremities, and taking your pulse and blood
pressure.

11. How Should I Choose My Primary Care Physician?
Did your physician take a comprehensive history? Was the
physical examination thorough?
Did your physician explain what he or she was doing during
the exam?
Did he or she spend enough time with you?
Did you feel free to ask questions? Did your physician give
you straight answers? Did he or she reassure you when you
were worried?
Does your physician seem willing to admit that he or she
doesn’t know the answers to some questions?
Does your physician hesitate to refer you to a specialist even
when you have a complex problem that warrants such care?

12. Screening Tests and Recommendations
• Anemia
• Beginning in adolescence, all non-pregnant
women should be screened every five to ten
years until menopause.
• Clinical Breast Exam/Mammogram
• Women age 20 to 39 should receive a clinical
breast exam every three years. Women age 40
and older should receive an annual clinical
breast exam and a mammogram.

13. Screening Tests and Recommendations
• Cervical Cancer Screening (Pap Smear)
• Three years after first sexual intercourse or by age 21,
whichever comes first, until age 30, women should receive
an annual Pap smear. After age 30, the screening rate
may decrease.
• Cholesterol and Lipids
• Adults over age 20 should have a lipoprotein panel test
every five years.
• Colorectal Cancer Screening
• Adults age 50 and older should receive an annual fecal
occult blood test and colonoscopy every ten years.

14. Screening Tests and Recommendations
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Beginning at age 45, adults should have a fasting blood
glucose test every three years.
• Hypertension Screening
• Adults age 18 and older should have an annual blood
pressure (BP) check. BP < 130/85  every two years. If
BP is between 130–139/85–89  every year. After age 60,
blood pressure should be checked annually.
• Osteoporosis
• Women 65 and older should have a baseline bone mineral
density test.

15. Screening Tests and Recommendations
• Prostate Cancer Screening
• Men age 50 and older should discuss potential benefits
and known harms of screening with PSA and digital rectal
exam.
• Skin Cancer Screening
• Adults should receive an annual skin exam.
• Visual Exam
• Adults age 18 to 40 should have a complete visual
examination every two to three years; age 41 to 60, every
two years; and age 61 and older, every year.

16. Your Medical Exam
• Medical history • Medical Tests:
• Lifestyle habits • Chest X-ray
• Standard Tests: • Electrocardiogram
• Head (ophthalmoscope) • Urinalysis
• Neck • Blood tests
• Chest (stethoscope)
• Abdomen
• Elective Treatments:
• Rectum and genitals • Vision surgery
• Pelvic examination • Cosmetic surgery
(speculum)
• Extremities
• Pulse and blood pressure

17. Three Basic Rights
Right to Information
You must give your consent for hospitalization,
surgery and other major treatments
Right to Privacy and Medical Records
You have a right to view and have a copy of
your medical records and limit who else sees
them
Right to Quality Health Care
Doctors must use reasonable care for all patients

18. Elective Treatments
• Basing diagnostic testing and treatments on solid
evidence produced by rigorous research studies.
• Evidence-based medicine pays particular
attention to outcomes.
• Outcome: The impact that a specific
medication or treatment has on a patient’s
condition, overall health, and quality of life.

19. Elective Treatments
• Elective treatments are procedures and products
that are not medically necessary but that promise
to enhance health or appearance
• Cosmetic Surgery
• Approximately a quarter of those receiving
plastic surgery are between the ages of 18
and 29, with liposuction, nose reshaping, and
breast augmentation as the most common
procedures.
• Vision Surgery
• You should find a qualified surgeon who has
experience and who will also participate in
pre- and post-operative surgery checkups.

20. Your Right to Privacy and Access to Medical Records
Access to
Medical Records
Notice of
Confidentiality Privacy
Practices
Prohibition
on
Marketing

21. Complementary and Alternative Medicine

22. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
• CAM refers to various medical and health care
systems, practices, and products that are not
considered part of conventional medicine
because there is not yet sufficient proof of their
safety and effectiveness.

23. Types of CAM
• Mind-body medicine uses techniques designed to
enhance the mind’s capacity to affect bodily
function and symptoms and can have a positive
effect on psychological functioning and quality of
life.
• Biologically-based therapies include substances
such as herbs, foods, and vitamins.
• Manipulative and body-based methods are those
based on manipulation and/or movement of they
body.
• Chiropractic and Massage are examples
• Energy therapies focus on energy fields believed
to exist in and around the body

25. What Should I Know Before I Try CAM?
• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Will it interact with other
medications or conventional
treatments?
• Is the practitioner qualified?
• What has been the experience
of others?
• Can you talk openly and easily
with the practitioner?
• Are you comfortable with the
CAM care setting?

26. Acupuncture: An Alternative Medical System
Cycle of energy flows through body
Philosophy Pain and disease disrupt cycle
Cycle can be restored by inserting
needles along meridians
Research shows effectiveness for:
• Chronic lower back pain
Use
• Osteoarthritis of knee
• Relief of nausea in chemotherapy

27. Three Additional Alternative Medical Systems
Traditional Indian medicine
Ayurveda Discipline of exercise, meditation,
herbal medicine and proper
nutrition to manage conditions
3 Fundamental Principles:
• Treatment must always be individual
Homeopathy
• Less is more
• Like cures like
Natural remedies as disease
Naturopathy
treatment

28. Mind-Body Medicine
Meditation and prayer
Visual imagery
Examples
Creative outlets: dance, art, music
Yoga, T’ai Chi
Visual imagery and biofeedback have
been accepted into Western medicine
Especially effective for chronic illness
Use
• Epilepsy • Pain
• Asthma • Raynaud’s Disease
• Cancer

30. Manipulative Mind-Body Medicine
Chiropractic Medicine
Massage Therapy
and Body Work
Osteopathic manipulation, Swedish
massage, Alexander technique,
reflexology, Pilates, acupressure,
and rolfing.
Unconventional
Physical Therapies
Colonics, hydrotherapy, and light
and color therapies

31. Health-Care Practitioners
• Physicians
• medical doctors from specialized schools who have undergone
premedical college courses and four or five years of medical school,
and who have passed a national board examination and finished a
one year internship, followed by a two to five year residency.
• Nurses
• graduate from a school of nursing and pass a state board
examination.
• Specialized and allied-health practitioners
• work with physicians and nurses, and include occupational therapists,
clinical psychologist, psychiatrists, optometrists, ophthalmologists, and
podiatrists.
• Dentists
• complete a bachelor degree, followed by two more years of sciences
training, two years of clinical work, and a written and clinical exam.
• Chiropractors
• have two years of college-level training, plus four years of specializing
in chiropractic care.

32. Health-care facilities
• College health centers range in size from small
dispensaries staffed by nurses to large-scale,
multispecialty clinics that provide both inpatient and out
patient care.
• Outpatient treatment centers can handle many common
surgical procedures, and then allow the patient to
recuperate at home to cut health-care costs.
• Hospitals and medical centers can be private, public, or
academic.
• Emergency services, or hospital emergency rooms, tend to be
understaffed, underfinanced, and more expensive.
• Inpatient hospital care is the most expensive.
• Home health care includes equipment and services
provided in the home to restore or maintain comfort,
function, and health.

33. Paying for Health Care
• Traditional Health Insurance
• Indemnity plans: A form of insurance that pays a
major portion of medical expenses after a deductible
amount in paid by the insured person.
• Managed Care
• Health care services and reimbursement predetermined
by third-party insurers.
• Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)
• An organization that provides health services on a
fixed-contract basis.

34. Paying for Health Care
• Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs)
• A group of physicians contracted to provide
health care to members at a discounted price.
• Government Financed Insurance Plans
• Medicare: The federal government pays 80%
of most medical bills, after a deductible fee,
for people over 65.
• Medicaid: A federal and state insurance plan
that protects people with very low or no
incomes/unemployed.

35. Paying for Health Care
• The Uninsured
• More that 47 million Americans are uninsured, with the
primary reason being the high cost of health insurance.

36. Types Of Health Insurance
Managed Care
Predominant form of US health care
Preferred Provider Organizations
Third-party contracts with providers to
provide services
Medicare/Medicaid
Federal and State insurance plan for
low-income
Health Maintenance Organizations
Managed care plan that emphasizes
routine care

37. Taking Charge of Your Health
• Trust Your Instincts
• Do your homework
• Find a good primary care physician who listens
carefully and responds to your concerns
• See your doctor regularly
• Get a second opinion
• Seek support
• If your doctor cannot or will not respond to your
concerns, get another one
• Speak up
• Bring your own advocate