Mobile Health Screening

I've always believed education and prevention were the keys to a healthy lifestyle. My spouse currently works at a company with a pretty large staff. Most of his coworkers work on computers which means they sit a lot at consoles. They often work long hours and order take out a lot. I'm trying to find a way to get him and his coworkers more active.

Although there is a gym less than 10 minutes away and a park with a walking trail across the street I thought that a way to get them interested in exercising was to introduce mobile screening.

Mobile health screening companies typically offers quality care and convenience with flexible and extended hours just what this group of computer junkies need. A previous employer I once worked for offered mobile health screening, I used the screening to check my blood pressures to screen for heart disease because it runs in my family. I learned so much about high blood pressure and what type of symptom to look for. I learned about hypertensions and hypotension. I learned more than I would if I did google searches all day.

Calculating your health risk?

I did a search on "heart attack risk" and I was surprised. I've never seen so many websites that help you calculate your risk of heart disease. Although helpful and convenient I can't help think that most of those calculators don't get information about family history, information that is pertinent.

Here is an example I found a website with a heart attack risk calculator. It ask for your blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, age, gender, and history of smoking. The results estimates your 10-year risk of having a heart attack. I really wonder how they come up with estimate for 10 years of your life. The good thing about the website it highlights that people with no none heart problems should use the tool.

Overall preventive health screening is a great way to get ahead of any potential serious health problems.

Health screening can encompass so many health risk such as stroke risk, heart attack risk, and Peripheral Artery Disease.

Reading Food Labels For a Healthy Heart

More and more I'm finding that people will tell you just about anything to sell you something. I'm noticing more foods promising to be "All Natural" and "Heart healthy." I ofter wonder how sincere the advertisers of these products are. Is it possible if I eat only these foods my risk for health problems will decrease?

Although these products make these great claims to improve the health of your heart I would not rely on them alone. Plus, these foods can't detect stroke risk or risk of other serious illnesses.

In order to detect your risk for stroke you need preventive health screening. So I'll continue to read the labels and stick with foods that are making these claims but I've also decided to use the internet to do my homework on the claims and see if a product's claim has been tested and has shown results. In other words I will take control to detect stroke risk for myself and not rely on others.

7 Things I Didn't Know: Detecting Stroke Risk

I did not know:

1. Certain drugs such as amphetamines and cocaine can cause stroke.
2. Most strokes can damage the brain within minutes.
3. Detecting your risk of stroke isn't as complicated as it may seem.
4. I recently found out that regular dental exams can help detect heart problems.
5. Certain heart problems can be detected and diagnosed with a CT scan or MRI.
6. A doctor can make a diagnosis of stroke based on a physical examination and a detailed history.
7. I did not know there is mobile health screening.

There are probably a lot more things I will learn but mostly is that I can detect stroke risk a lot easier than I thought.

What Does Your Heart Yearn For?

My hearts yearns for:

Information
Do you know your risk of heart disease? I'm just learning about mine. I now know what the top and bottom numbers mean for my blood pressure : )

Exercise
Okay maybe a no brainer for many. But for some people including myself I thought once a week would be enough. My problem is consistency. I'm working on one hour for 3 days a week and I'm working on sticking with that schedule.

Healthy & Clean environment
Fortunately most restaurants and public enclosed spaces are banning smoking. After leaving Chicago and moving to Austin and then visiting Chicago my lungs got spoiled my body recognized the difference between clean air and heavy congested city smog.

Healthy Food
Enough said.

Common Sense
Well this didn't come to me right away. How can my heart yearn common sense? Well the first thing that came to mind was HEALTH SCREENING. So simple, it never occurred to me. I'm one of those people I go to the doctor when I'm sick. Participating in preventive health screening is more accessible. My husband's job has trailers outside in their company parking lot that provides mobile health screening. Now if I get them to come to my house : )

Sometimes Knowing Too Much Can Be Scary

I was listening to NPR about a breast cancer gene that a family found out they inherited. They spent a lot of money and stressful waits by the phone to find out if the gene was past on to them and from them to their daughters. It was heartbreaking and hard to listen to. So I turned it off.

So of course I started thinking about health screening as a whole. And how sometimes to much information isn't a good thing. This family was pretty frantic and even had periods of depression due to the unknown of their health screenings. I started to think about how health screening for your family doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

I think if you make it mandatory that annually or whatever schedule your doctor suggested, it will become routine. I think about how I go for mammograms and pap smears and it's typically a non-stressful appointment. It's health screening and should be treated as such, a way to warn your self in advance so you can take preventive measures or treat problems. Needless to say the NPR story on health screening had me thinking a lot about my own health and how I can take control by using health screening for preventive care.

What's in your medicine cabinet?

You ever go to someone else's house for dinner or a party and look to see what's in their medicine cabinet? Don't lie, either you did or you thought about it.

I decided to go through my medicine cabinet. It's one of those neglected areas of the home you just don't think about cleaning. To my surprise I found a lot of expired medicine and vitamins. I also noticed a lot of medications and vitamins that I used to prevent myself and my family from getting colds and infection.

The money spent on preventing my family from getting sick has added up. Not that it hasn't been worth every penny. As me and my spouse go into our 40s I started to think about preventive screening.

Preventive screening for my family is something I never considered. However, having a family with high blood pressure makes me think that preventive screening makes sense. My husband doesn't know a lot about his family's medical history and worries about health issues that may develop as he ages. So for both of us preventive health screening makes sense. We also want our children to be aware of health screening when they become adults.