Medical treatment is a variety of health care interventions to help heal, improve or cure the body. This includes medicines, therapies, and surgery. Some treatments are meant to prevent illness. Others are used to treat ongoing illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure, or to restore function after a disease or injury. Some are a bridge to another therapy, such as ventricular assist devices to keep a heart pumping while waiting for a transplant. Others are destination therapies, which are a final treatment that may also be curative.
Medicine has made amazing advances. Some of these, such as vaccines and antibiotics, can prevent or cure many diseases, while other treatments, such as cataract surgery and hip replacements, are lifesaving for patients. But the success of these treatments encourages doctors to use them for more and more conditions, labeling people as diabetic or hypertensive even when their test results are only slightly abnormal. The result is that more and more Americans are being medicated with drugs, and this can come with side effects, such as nausea, fatigue and a loss of appetite.
A major problem is that there is a lack of consensus about what constitutes medical treatment. Some groups, such as the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, suggest that many routine procedures are unnecessary and may cause harm. For example, they recommend that women over 45 should not receive a blood test to diagnose menopause, and that X-rays are not useful for lower back pain. They also say that the treatment of skin rashes with eczema and psoriasis should be guided by evidence from trials, rather than by an empiric approach where doctors administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic on the basis of their educated guess about what might be causing the illness.
Other groups advocate for a more individualized approach to health care. They want to know why a particular treatment works or not, and whether it is likely to work in someone like you. They want to see if you can benefit from the latest research on how genetic differences influence response to medications. This is called pharmacogenomics.
Choosing the best treatment for you can be overwhelming, particularly when there are multiple options available. It is important to think about how each treatment option will affect your daily life, for example, whether its side effects interfere with your regular activities and if it’s expensive or covered by insurance. It’s also a good idea to ask friends and family members about their experiences with the different treatments. They may have insights that are hard to get from your doctor. They can also be a source of support and encouragement. If a treatment is not right for you, your doctor should explain why it isn’t and suggest alternatives. A health care provider can also help you find community-based support groups. This can be a valuable resource to learn from the experience of others with the same condition and to share your own experiences.