Your body needs more of your attention as you age. This is because the older you get, the more you’re prone to illnesses and diseases that require extensive care. For this reason, you should get into the habit of getting regular health checkups and attending all your routine assessments. Being vigilant about your well-being can help you avoid severe complications and prevent minor illnesses from escalating into major ones.
At the same time, a doctor can assist you in managing chronic conditions better, ensuring it stays under control. But the benefits don’t end there; there are many advantages to getting regular checkups, and as an older person, it is vital you know them. Therefore, to give you a deeper understanding, here’s what you need to know:
- Allows Preventive Care
Regular checkups are the best way to learn about your health status. There are many illnesses and diseases that can silently develop in your body and not express themselves until much later. So, by the time you first experience symptoms, the condition may already be too severe to treat. At the same time, the disease may also be too aggressive for the doctor to examine closely, giving them a narrow margin to treat you. One leading example of a silent but lethal disease is mesothelioma, a form of cancer.
Hence, regular screening tests and checkups, even if you’re perfectly healthy, allow the doctor to stop many harsh conditions in its track and remove them before they can pose a threat.
- Ensures You’re On Top of Important Screening Exams and Vaccines
Certain vaccines and screening exams are necessary for older individuals. This is because your immunity starts declining after you hit a certain age, and conditions like the flu can also be far too dangerous for you to handle. For instance, the Department of Health recommends that all adults over 65 need at least two pneumococcal shots. Pneumococcal disease is a severe bacterial infection that affects your lungs, blood, and brain. Most older people are at a high risk of contracting these illnesses, so you must get these shots.
Likewise, as of 2022, federal health officials recommend that people over 65 must get an updated dose of flu vaccines. These guidelines are issues because as your immunity weakens, you become more susceptible to the influenza virus, impairing your respiration.
Similarly, if you have a family history of cancers, you need to start getting screened for them. Adults between 50 and 75 are advised to get screened for colon cancer. Women between the ages of 40 to 75 are recommended to get yearly mammograms to detect breast cancer. Meanwhile, men above the age of 50 need to get their prostate screened. Apart from cancer, a screening test can inform you about your lipid levels, blood pressure, and cholesterol, ensuring you’re not on the borderline of developing a severe ailment.
- Keeps You Educated
A regular health assessment is a great way to educate yourself. It allows you to learn about your health condition in an informed manner. A new visit can teach you something new, and you may become better at looking after yourself. For example, you may learn what medications you’re allergic to, what times of the day your blood pressure is high, and what food items suit your diet better. First-hand education and information protect you from rumors, myths, or conspiracy theories on health issues. Health assessments polish you into an educated patient, and your doctor may also have an easier time working with you.
- Better Management of Chronic Conditions
Chronic conditions like arthritis and diabetes require long-term care and support. These disorders cannot be completely cured but can be managed closely. Hence, getting regular checkups is the best way to look after yourself while battling chronic ailments. For instance, if you have diabetes, it is essential to determine how bad your condition is. A doctor needs to know if they can manage your symptoms with oral pills or do you require supplemental insulin injections to control your blood glucose levels.
Furthermore, regular checkups allow the doctor to control your medication dosage linearly. They can gradually increase or decrease the amount you use until you hit the ideal dosage. Additionally, the medical practitioner can use your patient history, collected over several months, to provide specific advice on the lifestyle changes you need to make design for your body alone.
However, if you don’t get regular checkups and sporadically drop by the doctor, you risk your chronic conditions from flaring up and getting worse with time. It also puts the medical professional in a difficult position since they have to guess and speculate on your health patterns to treat you.
- Reduces Healthcare Costs
Getting a regular checkup allows medical practitioners to detect diseases in their primary stages and treat them right away. This reduces your chance of getting sick and prevents you from undergoing extensive treatments and invasive procedures like surgeries or biopsies. Likewise, you get saved from getting admitted into the hospital and requiring elaborate aftercare, which also comes at a heavy price. Therefore, looking after yourself diligently and becoming regular with your tests saves you from months of treatments and access medication that is affordable and can get covered by your insurance.
Final Thoughts
Part of staying healthy is exercising vigilance about your health. As you age, your body slows down and needs you to pay more attention to it. This is why once you’re no longer middle-aged, you need to become more proactive with your health. To do this, you need to get regular checkups and screening tests. This allows you to prevent severe illnesses from worsening, ensures you have all the necessary vaccines required for your immunity, and keeps up informed about your health.
Furthermore, regular checkups also put you in a better position to manage your chronic health and save your budget from going off track by reducing the need for expensive treatments and medications. For this reason, book your appointment today and go in for monthly and yearly checkups to live a happy and fulfilling life.