When it comes to your health, there is nothing better than taking a preventative approach. The goal should be to prevent illnesses and diseases from happening, rather than reacting to them once they arise. But how do you accomplish this kind of preventative care? This is when the importance of preventative health checks plays a huge role. A preventative health check isn’t something everyone talks about, but it should be as it offers all kinds of benefits to patients. Here’s a look at what a preventative health check is and the top reasons why it’s so important.
What is a Preventative Health Check?
If you’ve never had a preventative health check, you may wonder what it entails. It’s important to note that this is different from your annual check-up and isn’t meant to replace it. The simple fact is that a yearly physical or exam may not be often enough to catch potential problems. For many illnesses and diseases, it’s best to catch them early, as this tends to offer a better outcome. These types of exams are of particular importance for seniors over the age of 65 since so much can change in a year. It’s important to think of a preventative health check as an asymptomatic exam – meaning you aren’t sick, you feel fine, but you still make the appointment.
Get a Full Snapshot of Your Body
The first benefit of a preventative health check is that it allows you to take a snapshot of your body. This is an opportunity to detect early warning signs and red flags so that appropriate and swift measures can be taken. A full-body MRI is something that could be included in a preventative health check, giving medical practitioners a good look at what’s happening with you. For example, Ezra’s full body MRI service is quick and simple and can show what’s happening with your major organs, among other things. An MRI can act as early detection for such things as disease and cancer. Ezra can scan 13 organs in just an hour, and it’s done without the use of harmful radiation.
Identify Areas That You Can Improve Upon
A health check can also identify areas that you can improve on. They may not be a problem now, but without change, they can lead to issues down the road. A great example is a person’s body weight. Obesity can lead to an array of health issues and a health check can identify if you are classified as obese. If so, then you can start working on losing weight and improving your overall health.
Other issues can be borderline hypertension (high blood pressure), high cholesterol, and so forth. The faster you can act on the issues, the better the outcome tends to be.
It Provides You with the Opportunity to Ask Questions
Any time you have a check-up, it’s a great opportunity to ask questions and take an active role in your health. Because people can often forget at the moment, it’s wise to write down your questions in advance so you can ask them at the appointment.
Helps to Give You Some Mental Relief
For those who tend to stress about medical issues and illnesses, getting regular health checks can also help to stem some of that anxiety. Waiting a whole year or more to hear from your doctor about your overall health can be too stressful. What started as a small issue or a small concern can snowball out of control in a year, even if it’s just in your mind and not grounded in facts.
Stress Can Lead to Various Diseases
Speaking of stress, did you know there are many stress-related diseases that a person can develop? Allowing yourself to feel stressed regularly can result in negative effects on your body. Unfortunately, stress-related diseases also go undetected pretty regularly, which can make the disease worse.
Regular Health Checks are Relatively Quick and Simple
If you’re under the impression that these health checks are time-consuming and involved, it’s time to think again. They can be quite brief and simple, just making sure to cover the basics and the most important issues.
Get a Blood Test and Screen for Disease
A preventative health check is also a great time to do a blood test and screen for diseases. There is a whole list of things that a blood test can identify, many of which may not have physical symptoms so you may not realize they are an issue.
As you head into the new year, why not use this as an opportunity to make your health a priority? Rather than waiting for your next physical, schedule a couple of preventative health checks throughout the year. Prevention and early detection are very important when it comes to health.
