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Financial Toxicity
Financial toxicity describes the negative impact medical expenses can have on patients in terms of their health related quality of life, leading to negative mental and physical effects as well as, in some cases, bankruptcy, loss of job or income, or even homelessness. Background The term financial toxicity was used in a 2009 article about the cancer drug industry "as a side effect of cancer drug treatment, along with nausea and hair loss". The cost of medical treatment has become a major complication of treatment in the United States, leading to suffering comparable to physical suffering and damaging a person´s ability to recover from their illness, according to a 2013 study published in The Oncologist journal. Patients can forgo treatments or opt for less-costly treatments, which can have a negative impact on their health. Prevalence In a study from Oregon almost 20% of older adults with advanced cancer experienced financial toxicity. This was assessed using 3 simple questions: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Expenses
Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to improve health outcomes and lifestyle patterns through interactions between individuals, healthcare providers and clinical settings. In broad terms, health economists study the functioning of healthcare systems and health-affecting behaviors such as smoking, diabetes, and obesity. One of the biggest difficulties regarding healthcare economics is that it does not follow normal rules for economics. Price and Quality are often hidden by the third-party payer system of insurance companies and employers. Additionally, QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years), one of the most commonly used measurements for treatments, is very difficult to measure and relies upon assumptions that are often unreasonable. A seminal 1963 article by Kenneth Arrow is often cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Related Quality Of Life
In general, quality of life (QoL or QOL) is the perceived quality of an individual's daily life, that is, an assessment of their well-being or lack thereof. This includes all emotional, social and physical aspects of the individual's life. In health care, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an assessment of how the individual's well-being may be affected over time by a disease, disability or disorder. Measurement Early versions of healthcare-related quality of life measures referred to simple assessments of physical abilities by an external rater (for example, the patient is able to get up, eat and drink, and take care of personal hygiene without any help from others) or even to a single measurement (for example, the angle to which a limb could be flexed). The current concept of health-related quality of life acknowledges that subjects put their actual situation in relation to their personal expectation. The latter can vary over time, and react to external influences such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cancer Drug
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent (which almost always involves combinations of drugs) or it may aim to prolong life or to reduce symptoms (palliative chemotherapy). Chemotherapy is one of the major categories of the medical discipline specifically devoted to pharmacotherapy for cancer, which is called ''medical oncology''. The term ''chemotherapy'' has come to connote non-specific usage of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis (cell division) or induce DNA damage, which is why inhibition of DNA repair can augment chemotherapy. The connotation of the word chemotherapy excludes more selective agents that block extracellular signals (signal transduction). The development of therapies with specific molecular or genetic targets, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Older Adult
Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage which stands for Old Age Pensioner), seniors, senior citizens (American usage), older adults (in the social sciences), and the elders (in many cultures). Elderly people often have limited regenerative abilities and are more susceptible to AIDS, herpes, hemorrhoids, and other illnesses than younger adults. A number of other disciplines and domains concern the aging and the aged, such as organic processes of aging ( senescence), medical studies of the aging process ( gerontology), diseases that afflict older adults (geriatrics), technology to support the aging society (gerontechnology), or leisure and sport activities adapted to older people, such as senior sport. The elderly face various social issues concerning retirement, loneliness, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Debt
Medical debt refers to debt incurred by individuals due to health care costs and related expenses. Medical debt is different from other forms of debt, because it is usually incurred accidentally or faultlessly. People do not plan to fall ill or hurt themselves, and health care remedies are often unavoidable; medical debt is often treated with more sympathy than other kinds of debt resulting in advice that people ought not try to convert it to credit card debt. United States Medical debt is an especially notable phenomenon in the United States. According to the poll from the Pew Research center, American citizens are much more worried about health care issues as a top public matter and concern, especially medical expenses, rather than the economy and terrorism. In less developed nations those on low income in need of treatment will often avail themselves of whatever help they can from either the state or NGOs without going into debt, and in most developed countries public cover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
