Detecting Stroke Risk

I recently was in France and met a friend that talked about time living between the US and France for many years. One of the things she missed about France compared to the US was the freshness of food, the slow paced lifestyle, and the affordability of things such as health care and basic needs. I began to feel envious of her and how life in France sounded so carefree. Then she tells me during her 40 years of marriage to an American he got sick and suffered a stroke while in France. After a couple of weeks of care in France she decided to take him back to America because of the quality of health care particularly the accessibility to specialist in the US compared to France. She and her spouse stayed in the US for his health care and he had access to more equipment to improve his lifestyle after his illness and he had high quality healthcare from a specialist.

One of things she told me that stood out was limited access in France to detect stroke risk. It turns out he was a prime candidate for stroke but wasn't aware. She feels with early detection or at the least a look at his family history would have been helpful.

Detecting risk for stroke doesn't have to be rocket science. However, if you don't have access to preventive screening you can miss out on pertinent information that could effect your health in the future.

Health and Money

Well I would typically argue that these two words should not be in the same sentence together. I mean how can you put a price on good health. It's what most of us want and strive for. Some of us get dealt hereditary bad luck some of us are just prone to health problems. But a good portion of us can prevent health problems with taking steps such as health screenings.

The truth is in the US medical care is top notch but not accessible to everyone. So money will remain in the same sentence with health until things change in our health care system. But I digress.

How can you head off the potential for money woes when it comes to your health. I go back to the idea of health screening. Preventive health can go beyond eating healthy and exercise. It can involve doing a family health tree and investing in preventive health screening. I did one years ago with my uncle to trace health issues and we found a history of sickle cell anemia and high blood pressure. With preventive health screening I was able to determine if I carried the sickle cell trait and as for blood pressure I learned how to use a blood pressure cup and I learned what the number meant whenever I had my blood pressure taken at a doctors visit. Plus whenever a doctor asked for questions about family history I knew what to tell him. Talk about being in control of your health.