subject: Determining The Types Of Chronic Illness [print this page] If you were to walk up to a person on the street and ask him what he believed the difference was between illness and health, chances are that you would likely receive a fast reply about how health is when the body works correctly and illness is when it does not.
When one starts to live with daily symptoms that resemble a chronic condition, however, the necessity of needing to understand the difference between a healthy body and a chronically ill body becomes much more important. It comes as a surprise to many people who are diagnosed with illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, that many diseases are still surrounded with great mystery, even from the medical community. Long-term symptoms are not fully known.
This does not negate the need, however, for one to seek answers. When the definitions of health and illness significantly impact your life, it obviously becomes a more personal issue. And the validation to have your pain recognized by both friends, as well as medical professionals, can become quite important. One needs someone to listen and diagnose symptoms of his or her illness.
To define chronic illness may seem like a simple task, despite the fact that there are many types of chronic illness. It could be said it is the absence of health or the existence of pain or other unhealthy symptoms. But consider this: there are people who suffer many symptoms of illness who are still considered rather healthy individuals; they even look fine on the outside, unaware of the complexity of medical issues brewing in their bodies that have yet to reveal themselves.
So if one's appearance or feeling doesn't lead to an accurate measurement of health or illness how do we accurately measure or define what real health and illness is?
The question may even be asked, "Can one be a healthy, chronically ill person?"
Derek Yak, presenter on the topic of "Health and Illness: The Definition of the World Health Organization" says that both societies and individuals have defined health in a variety of ways. Regardless of the efforts that to into creating credible, reasonable definitions, there will always be criticism.
Determining the health and illness rates for a country is an unreliable science. Do the statistics of our life expectancy or infant mortality rates determine which countries are healthiest? As groups try to remove the toys from McDonald's Happy Meals to ensure healthier food options for our children in the USA, other countries struggle just to find food. Though I have been known to look at the McDonalds calorie list, not every mom is looking up the McDonald's Happy Meal toy schedule. Most are telling their children to eat the apples-not the apple pie.
Is it unrealistic to believe that everyone can obtain some level of health? The definition of health and illness will always be vague and determined not scientifically, but rather sociologically by those determined to use the definition to their advantage.
And so, yet again, this brings us to the question of "What is a chronic illness?"
Medically, chronic illness can be defined as a condition that is lasting longer than three months, according to the definition determined by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. This could include any physical state that takes away one's measure of health-or as the void of illness such as the autoimmune illness chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, symptoms of end stage COPD, or even cancer.
The majority of people in the U.S.A usually seem to be--if not completely healthy--at least free from illness or disease. But appearance is far from what it seems, because nearly 1 in 2 American live with a kind of chronic pain, condition, or illness. This can include anything from chronic migraines to disabling back pain. This illness statistic can be found in the study, "Chronic Care in America: A 21st Century Challenge" by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Our society has firmly held the opinion that the commonly advertised medications will cure our illness or at least make all symptoms soon disappear. And we are told this is true: that we just need to follow the advice of the pharmaceutical companies and soon we will be as good as we used to be!
It is often assumed that the concept of pain management means, not "managing the pain," but rather ending it completely for an indefinite amount of time. If the pain is not entirely removed from our lives, most people assume that the treatments or medications have failed to do the job they were supposed to do. The pharmaceutical companies that design the medications give us the impression that they will cure us from the illness, or at least remove all the symptoms.
When the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in 1948, health was defined as "being a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Illness is defined as "a state of poor health" by Wikipedia. It states, "Illness is sometimes considered a synonym for disease."
Some would argue that true health is more a state of mind--an attitude about life--than what your lab tests results may reveal.
This can be a sensitive issue. There are healthy people who live with extreme chronic illnesses, but they stay as fit as possible in spite of their conditions. Other people may have wonderful genetics and be very healthy according to lab tests, and yet they put their body under great physical stress. And then if they get an illness, was it caused by the stress or was it an illness they likely would have gotten eventually anyway?
This starts to move into what is considered the definition of social health; does the illness come before the stress or vice versa? There are hundreds if not thousands of social factors that determine health.
In conclusion, many of the definitions on any topic in our society are determined by who you ask. For each person you ask, you will likely receive a different answer. Chronic illness does carry a great deal of burdens and frustrations, but it is true that joy is also a choice that can be made. I feel that I am able to say this because I have lived with degenerative rheumatoid arthritis for nearly twenty years. And I have learned that although my body may spin out of control sometimes with a flare have moments of being disabled, I still have a choice each day to try to find joy despite my circumstances.
If nearly 1 in 2 people live with a chronic illness or condition, we all know someone, right? You may be surprised just who says they don't in this 2-minute video where I share some of my insights on how to define chronic illness.
