Preventive Care

Definition

Effective preventive care requires specific and objective approaches to different people. To ensure real care, a healthcare provider has to establish the unique characteristics of the patient. To do so a health provider has to determine the patient’s age, find out if he or she is suffering from any chronic illness, patients cultural beliefs and practices and lastly the geographical area where the patient resides. All the above situations pose unique challenges needing specific preventive care. Age and gender play a critical role in proving preventive care. To begin with, patient’s age is a determinant in the vulnerability to major illness.as Shaw, Goldstein, & Montgomery, (2013), points out, children and elderly, are predisposed to numerous infections because their immune systems are either not fully developed or worn out respectively. As much, gender is crucial too since some conditions come about due to the patient’s sex (Vaidya, Partha, & Karmakar, 2012). For instance, cervical cancer prevention is unique to the female. Therefore one has to pay attention to care while dealing with the woman unlike when dealing with male patients.

Developmental milestones indicate the well-being of a person through a normal growth and development. Thus an abnormal growth and development indicate that the patient may be having challenges hence may not be able to take of themselves completely. According to Oller, Oller, & Oller, (2012), the patients with delayed developmental milestones might be vulnerable to infections. Healthcare providers have to pay close attention to such patients. Signs of obesity weakened immunity, and poor lifestyle is some of the risk factors that require active health promotion and preventive care. The location of the patient and the industrial activities are also critical in determining health promotion activities.