Health is fundamental to our well-being. Most people consider their quality of life positive, as long as they remain in good physical and mental condition, however, and precisely because of this thought, when we suffer from a disease, the world falls on us and we think that nothing else is worth it. This may be the case for patients with degenerative diseases.
The truth is, quality of life isn’t just about health. There are many other factors that are important for your maintenance. These are the other factors we must resort to if we are to improve the well-being of patients with degenerative diseases.
However, before delving into these aspects, we must better understand what exactly this type of disease is.
Degenerative diseases are conditions, generally chronic, in which certain cells in our body deteriorate, which causes the tissues to compromise their quality or even stop working. This type of disease, unlike infectious diseases, is not produced by external agents; on the contrary, it is our body that causes the symptoms.
Some known examples of degenerative diseases are those that affect the central nervous system, so they manifest themselves in the proper functioning of the patient’s brain, which can affect both cognitive and motor control skills, two of the best known of this type are Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
However, patients with degenerative diseases are not only affected by the nervous system, many of these syndromes affect all types of tissues, so any organ, device or body system can be affected.
Degenerative diseases are complicated to assimilate by the patient and his family, the non-existent remedy and the fact that independence and freedom of movement are reduced are difficult to accept, however, it should be noted that this does not imply that the patient will have no more quality of life.
Quality of life is a very abstract concept, difficult to define in detail, the official indicators responsible for its study are defined at the level of the well-being of each country, however, these ways of measuring it do not serve us when we try. to increase our individual happiness.
Still, certain factors improve our quality of life, for example, personal relationships and self-esteem are likely to be part of the definition of happiness for most of us, these are the aspects to be addressed with patients with degenerative diseases.
In addition to these fundamental points, various therapies are developed with the aim of improving the quality of life of this type of patients. For example, hypotherapy or horse-assisted therapy in people with multiple sclerosis; or canine therapies for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Whatever we choose, the important thing is that there are many ways to improve the quality of life of chronic patients, if you are in this situation or if you know someone who faces something like this remember: there is always something we can do.