How to change New year's health resolution from 'false hope' to 'true hope'
By Shin Hyun-young
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There is a term called “False hope syndrome.”
It means our New Year’s resolutions are usually unrealistic with excessively high expectations, which ends up in a short-term resolution.
Everybody agrees that we should go step by step when we move toward our dreams. Whether the end point is high or just in front of you, making a New Year’s plan for health promotion is worthwhile.
In medicine, health promotion through healthy behavior is a basic step to protect an individual’s health compared to any medical procedure or supplementations.
Knowing our current health status through health screenings can also help us set a realistic healthcare strategy.
Here are some tips to take advantage of check-up programs, which are based on my consulting experiences as a family medicine specialist.
There are various kinds of health checkups in Korea.
It is largely divided into free health checkups supported by the government and charged comprehensive checkups at private medical institutions selected by individuals.
Free examinations include general health check-ups, life cycle medical checkups including dementia screening and geriatric assessment, and cancer screening with age and sex standards at regular intervals.
The free program is composed of limited test items. Therefore, you cannot get your body fully checked through free check-ups.
In order to complement this, a charged comprehensive checkup is needed.
Selecting a suitable program is the starting point as there are diverse programs with various items and prices.
When choosing a program, it is recommended to get medical advice on useful test items, especially for image studies including computerized tomography (CT) scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), based on the individual’s past illness history, family history, and risk factors according to age and gender.
Receiving check-ups at one institution every year is preferred so that the examiner can compare interval changes of results.
Try to avoid the check-up at the end of the year which is the peak season.
Health check-ups should be carried out at one’s best condition to obtain the highest accuracy. Before the test, fatty foods, unusual dietary habits, and excessive or intense exercise can lead to incorrect test results.
After the health screening, followup care is an important part of the lifelong healthcare approach.
Face-to-face counseling with a doctor is important to obtain motivation to establish and continue a more comprehensive and interactive healthcare plan rather than getting test results by mail.
For positive findings such as benign nodules that require periodic follow-up, the person should list the test method and cycle.
In case of abnormal findings, we should understand them by counseling with a specialist and additional examinations. Active efforts should be made to further evaluate the results.
Why don’t we come together with our families and plan a health checkup this year on Lunar New Year’s Day?
If you choose a lifelong healthcare plan based on the results of a check-up, you will become confident that your 2017 New Year’s health resolution will be one step closer to “true hope” rather than “false hope.”
The writer is a doctor of family medicine at Myongji Hospital.