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A trip to the hospital following the sudden onset of a potentially life threatening condition is stressful and confusing. People who go to the emergency room for treatment are barraged with test after test to determine what is causing their symptoms. Doctors no longer seem to rely on their own training and experience when diagnosing, but instead rely on technology to tell them what is wrong. Even with all the complicated laboratory tests and high tech scanning devices available, doctors still make mistakes. They are trying to order tests and analyze results very quickly to expedite care and sometimes this effort results in missed symptoms. The oversight can be deadly. Monitoring health at home can help to prevent a serious condition from becoming fatal, as this article will explain.

 

The end result of missed symptoms

A study on hospital admissions and deaths following heart attacks in England emphasizes how missed symptoms can lead to death. The study, published in The Lancet in February 2017, showed that of the patients who died from heart attack in NHS hospitals between 2006 and 2010, 16% had been admitted to the hospital in the four weeks leading up to the fatal heart attack, but symptoms of heart attack were not mentioned in the medical record. The researchers concluded that these symptoms may have been overlooked because no obvious damage to the heart was detected at the time. The study also found that patients who were admitted to the hospital with heart attack as a secondary diagnosis were two to three times more likely to die than those admitted with heart attack as the primary diagnosis.

This rush to test and diagnose often results in a stressful situation for both the patient and the doctor. The patient may feel overwhelmed by all the questions they are asked and may not answer the doctor’s questions accurately. The doctor may look for specific symptoms of a certain condition and may miss subtle symptoms that are actually signs of a different, more serious condition. The miscommunication can result in wasted time, wasted money, or worse, delayed treatment for a hidden disease that could become fatal.

 

A simple way to avoid missed symptoms

One way to avoid this situation is to monitor health at home. A running record of health symptoms can give a person a picture of what is “normal” for them in regards to blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels, and other indicators. When a change occurs in one of these indicators, the person is alerted to a possible symptom of a health condition and will be able to see a doctor early, before that health condition becomes an emergency situation. Increases in blood pressure and irregularities in pulse are early warning signs of heart attack. If these are detected through health tracking, the person can alert a doctor and go in for tests.

An important part of health level measurement at home is keeping a health diary or a health journal. This is a written description of a person’s overall feeling of health from day to day. Specific symptoms are included if they are present, such as pain levels, shortness of breath, light headedness, or a feeling that the heart is racing. Anything that does not feel normal is written down. Since the health journal is complete every day, a person can easily see when symptoms started to appear and whether or not they have become worse over time.

 

Faster diagnosis using a home health record

The benefit of health screening at home, including keeping a health journal, is the ability to show the record to a doctor during a visit. The doctor can look at the record of symptoms and can determine a possible course of action from the report. Test that are necessary to diagnose a condition that is indicated by the health record are ordered, while other tests that are not necessary are withheld. By only running the necessary tests and comparing the results to the health record, the doctor can determine a diagnosis more efficiently and with more confidence. This reduces stress for both the doctor and patient and leads to early detection of serious health conditions. It can also help the doctor to determine which conditions are primary and which are secondary.

The home health record is especially beneficial if a person does have to go to the emergency room. Even though it is a quick paced and stressful situation, the doctor can look at the health record provided by the patient and determine appropriate tests based on the data and description of symptoms. Stress is reduced, because the patient does not have to try to remember what to tell the doctor and the doctor does not have to guess what the patient’s actual symptoms are. Again, the result is more efficient testing and an earlier course of treatment. It is easy to see how important health assessment at home can be, especially if the symptoms recorded indicate a life-threatening condition.

Quantihealth has all of the resources needed to start a home health record. For more information, visit www.thequantihealth.com.

 

Tags: health tracking, monitoring health at home, hidden disease, health level measurement, health screening at home, early detection, health assessment at home