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Juhan Sonin edited this page Jun 24, 2015 · 79 revisions

Upcoming Health Care Cards (v2 of the deck on Kickstarter by Jul.2014, shipped by Dec.15):

  1. Know Your Care Team
  2. Donate your Data to Science
  3. Avoid Sunburn
  4. Food is Medicine
  5. Meet your Eats
  6. Get Your Flu Shot
  7. Vaccinate Your Child
  8. Smile
  9. Healthcare is a Human Right
  10. Sit Less
  11. Skip the Salt
  12. Slow Down
  13. Control Your Cholesterol
  14. Drink Less
  15. Sugar Kills (in concept phase)

Additional care cards for Hallmark Clinic:

  • Know Your Self-Care Plan
  • Know Your Diabetes Plan
  • Manage Your Blood Pressure
  • Manage Your Weight
  • Control Your Cholesterol
  • Check Your Blood Pressure
  • Check Your Blood Sugar
  • Drink Less

Future card concepts include:

  1. Wipe from Front to Back
  2. Share Decisions
  3. Eat Less Meat
  4. Ask Questions
  5. Cover Your Cough
  6. Plan Your Death
  7. Pick a Pet (draft art, https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/13335169294/)
  8. Bedtime with Kids
  9. Listen More

and topics on:

  1. Ebola/Contagion Plans
  2. Engage Your Colleagues (Online support communities like Smart Patients)
  3. Elder care w/Pneumonia, Shingles, Living alone
  4. Supporting Care Transitions
  5. Telemedicine, or alternative inter visit communication techniques

Know Your Care Team

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/14540537960/

You have more than a primary doctor. There’s a team of people -- nurse practitioners, specialists, dieticians, and even hospitalists -- who occupy themselves around your care.

As patient, you are the most important member of the team: captain. Be active. Understand the role of the different team members. Know your health goals and convey them to the team. Share complete information about your health, medications, and behaviors. Ask questions to understand recommendations and treatments.

If you have a chronic condition or impairment, the size and diversity of your team may increase. Find out: how will the different members interact?

Clear communication and engagement with your care team will give you a sense of control over your health and your life.

Donate Your Data To Science

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/13891241732/

Did you know that you can contribute to scientific and medical research by swiping just a few cells from your mouth, skin, and gut? It's a painless little gift with big impact potential.

For insights into populations, scientists are collectively mapping the DNA (genetic code) and human microbiome (bacterial communities) from the bodies of thousands of living people to discover the origins of disease and health.

If you share your biological data from your saliva, skin, mucus, and, er, solid waste, it will be pooled with data from other human donors

To find a way to participate, contact the clinical trials and research program at your nearest hospital or search online for "human genome" or "microbiome" and "research."

Science, medicine, and the future of humanity will benefit. Your individual privacy will not be compromised. Give a few cells: it doesn't hurt.

Sources:

Avoid Sunburn

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/14083816513/

Your skin is the body's largest organ. It protects us, helps regulate body temperature, and permits senstation. Skin needs care through our lives, especially protection from the sun and ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Sun's effects on the skin -- wrinkles, freckling, and especially skin cancers -- can be significantly lessened or prevented. Follow the ABC method, even on overcast days, when 40% of UV rays still get through clouds.

A is for avoiding the sun exposure at mid-day (10am to 4pm) when it's most intense. Play in the shade or enjoy the pool or beach under an umbrella.

B is for blocking the damaging UV rays by applying sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher for adults and 30 or higher for children. Reapply frequently.

C is for covering up with clothing, brimmed hats, and sunglasses with UV protection when heading outdoors for longer periods of recreation, exercise, and work.

And tanning -- whether in the sun or at a salon -- damages the skin over time, even if you wear sunscreen. The temporary "glow" of a tan masks the cumulative, long-term effects of UV exposure.

Protect the health of your skin every day of the year: avoid, block, and cover up.

Sources:

Food is Medicine

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/14406031184/

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food." Hippocrates, a physician in Classical Greece, recommended this in 431 BC.

Physicians and nutritionists today are returning to his wisdom. While a medication or nutritional supplement typically isolates only a few beneficial chemicals, whole foods may contain thousands of phytonutrients that can enhance well being and illness resistance.

The food-as-medicine principles are worth studying and discussing with your doctor. Start here:

Eat the rainbow, or a meal with a large variety of color, to insure diverse nutrients including antioxidants.

Know how to combine foods -- like apples with blueberries, or carrots with avocado -- to increase the body's ability to absorb nutrients.

Reduce sugar consumption, whether in processed or "natural" foods, juices, or beverages, to reduce triglycerides, blood pressure, and the body's storage of fat.

Lower your dependence on meat, stick to lean cuts, and cook with methods, like broiling and poaching, that produce fewer carcinogens than high-flame methods.

Seek nutrition counseling for your body's particular needs to perform as an athlete, heal after an injury or acute illness, or improve health with chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, and allergies.

Finally, address malnutrition in your community and help overcome hunger. For some families, getting access to enough food and the right food can be a major health boost.

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Meet Your Eats

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/13445887414/

Food grown or produced locally -- from lettuce to eggs to bread -- are often fresher, with fewer chemicals applied for preservation or ripening, than foods produced far away or by large agrocompanies.

Make it a practice to read labels and signage not just for nutrition data and price, but for the origin and producer of your food. In your favorite grocery store, encourage the store manager to offer even more foods produced in your region. Get your neighbors to do the same.

Seek out your local farmers' market, including ones that operate in winter, and do more than shop there: talk to farmers about their growing methods and about farming issues that concern them.

Having a connection to the source of your food may induce you and your child to choose these nutritious foods again and again and even expand your exploration of regional specialties, whether vegetable, fruit, grain, fish, meat, or dairy.

Your involvement in the local and regional food chain is also good for business, insuring that small farmers, producers, and markets flourish and continue to provide the foods you value.

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Get Your Flu Shot

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/15666378702/

Influenza (flu) is a highly contagious and serious respiratory disease that is caused by a virus and can lead to serious complications, like pneumonia. It's way more than a "bad cold."

Everyone 6 months or older should get a flu vaccine -- whether shot or nasal spray -- at the start of every flu season.

And, because flu viruses are constantly mutating or changing, and different flu viruses cause illneses each year, it's critical to get a flu vaccine annually. Scientists and public health researchers track the flu and select vaccines best matched to viruses in current circulation.

While other health practices, such as frequent hand sanitizing, can help you lessen your exposure to the flu, the best way to avoid the flu is the current vaccine. It's not enough to have gotten one last year.

Getting vaccinated also protects your community, providing "herd immunity," or an effect where enough people have been vaccinated that there is little opportunity for a local outbreak. By getting a flu shot, you help infants and pregnant women, for example, who cannot be immunized.

Vaccinate Your Child

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/15776667672/

Vaccines produce immunity from serious diseases. They are well designed and rigorously tested in scientific studies, and they protect the health of you, your child, and the community.

Follow the recommended schedule of vaccines, which starts for babies at 6 months old, and save your child from diseases that once injured or killed thousands of children. Polio, once the most feared disease in America, has been eliminated because of vaccines.

Vaccines, especially injected ones, may cause some discomfort and even pain at the site. Your child may fuss and complain. This is normal and can be soothed.

Discomfort from the vaccine is minimal compared to the pain, trauma, and even death that the disease itself could cause. Without the measles vaccine, one of the most effective available, your child has a 90% chance of contracting it from an infected person.

Talk to your trusted pediatrician or nurse practitioner and read valid information sources to understand vaccine technology and its place in human health.

Keep your child on schedule for the series of vaccines recommended from birth through the teenage years.

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Smile More

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/13335169294/

Charles Darwin, writing in 1872, suggested that “even the simulation of an emotion arouses it in our minds.” A century later, the facial feedback hypothesis asserted that muscle feedback from facial expressions helped regulate emotions. A change in the body’s expression of emotion might prompt genuine feeling.

Deliberately turning up the corners of your mouth -- smiling -- may ‘trick’ the mind and body into a better mood.

A smile also draws people to you, which is good for social interactions.

If tired or stressed, prompt yourself to smile. Your face will appear brighter and more refreshed, improving your appearance and approachability. Because of mirror neurons, people will likely repay your smile with their own, and in turn boost your mood.

Even if you’re not in the mood, think “smile” and let it light up your face and trigger a moment of happiness, your own and others.

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Healthcare is a Human Right

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/16100751937/

The health of our communities depends on the health of individual members.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for all people and all nations, was proclaimed by the United Nations in 1948. Included as a fundamental right is a standard living that supports the health and well-being of one’s self and family.

World health leaders have asserted that governments must generate conditions in which every person can be as healthy as possible. The right to health does not mean a right to be healthy.

Because of insufficient access to health care and medical resources, 150 million people annually suffer financial catastrophe, and 100 million people pushed below the poverty line, because of personal expenditures related to health.

You can join workers’ campaigns, at your workplace or through a union, to advocate for universal healthcare. Politically, you can join a people’s movement, like one ongoing in Vermont, attend public forums, write letters to elected officials in your state, and vote for health care access.

Even if your own health care needs are covered, look for opportunities to insure access to health care for all.

Sources:

Sit Less

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/16106281210/in/photostream/

Sources:

Skip the Salt

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/15752128734/

When you consume more salt than your body needs, sodium builds up in your blood. This causes your body to hold water, increasing your blood volume and pressure. Chronic high blood pressure can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and congestive heart failure.

The recommended limit for sodium is less than 2,300 mg/day and 1,500 mg/day if you are over age 51. Certain genetically based characteristics can make some people especially sensitive to sodium, as well.

One teaspoon of table salt contains 2,325 mg of sodium! To avoid hidden salt in your diet, try these tips: Buy fresh ingredients without added salt. Avoid canned, frozen, and other processed foods. Avoid spice blends, dressings, and sauces with added salt. Look for “low sodium” or “no salt added” products. Learn to read nutrition information labels on packaged foods.

Slow Down

Illustration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/16155448320/

Plan Your Death

Share Decisions

Should all major medical decisions be a SHARED DECISION? ...shared between the patient and a clinician? Could there be multiple clinicians on the careplan agreement?

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