Health: Check Yourself
Health: Check Yourself
A personal health-check log can assist older people in maintaining awareness of their ongoing condition, according to a study carried out by health and ageing researchers at the SE Sydney/Ilawarra Area Health Service.
The objective was to determine the effectiveness of the health check log in promoting health awareness, health monitoring skills, and timely consultation with health professionals for persons aged 65 and over. 35 men and women volunteers recorded their log for 12 months, participated in regular telephone interviews to discuss note-takings, and met together at the conclusion.
The results, as outlined by June Sheriff and Lynn Chenoweth in the March 2006 edition of the Australasian Journal on Ageing, raised awareness of less tangible aspects of health, revealed gaps in the health knowledge base, improved self-assessment, and prompted direct consultations.
The study showed that participants concentrated on physiological rather than psychosocial health indicators. There was greater concern with medicines, vision, skin, blood pressure, hands/feet, and bowel function. There was less concern for follow-up with balance, joints and tendons, walking, climbing stairs, aches and pains, hearing, gums, nutrition, allergies, and emotional, memory, and sleep problems ( the last were particularly poor).
Both men and women who identified concerns with balance, digestion, urinary problems, joints and tendons, physical strength and activity levels consulted health professionals. However women consulted professionals more than men for concerns with their teeth, weight, allergies, veins and arteries, muscles, walking, memory, bladder function, and nail/cuticle infection.
