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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. It leads 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-cost 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 question ... [...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. 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, QALYs (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 credited with giving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Related Quality Of Life
In healthcare, quality of life 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 as length and severity of illness, family support, etc. As with any situation involving multiple perspectives, patients' and physicians' rating of the same objective situation have been found to differ significantly. Consequently, health-related quality of life is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cancer Drug
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard regimen. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent (which almost always involves combinations of drugs), or it may aim only 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'' now means the non-specific use of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis (cell division) or to induce DNA damage (so that DNA repair can augment chemotherapy). This meaning excludes the more-selective agents that block extracellular signals (signal transduction). Therapies with specific molecular or genetic targets, which inhibit growth-promoting signals from classic endocrine hormones (primarily estrogens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Older Adult
Old age is the range of ages for people nearing and surpassing life expectancy. People who are of old age are also referred to as: old people, elderly, elders, senior citizens, seniors or older adults. Old age is not a definite biological stage: the chronological age denoted as "old age" varies culturally and historically. Some disciplines and domains focus on the aging and the aged, such as the 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), and leisure and sport activities adapted to older people (such as senior sport). Older people often have limited regenerative abilities and are more susceptible to illness and injury than younger adults. They face social problems related to retirement, loneliness, and ageism. In 2011, the United Nations proposed a human-rights convention to protect old people. History European The hist ... [...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, such as an ambulance ride or the cost of visiting a doctor. Medical debt differs from other forms of debt because it is usually incurred accidentally or faultlessly. People do not plan to fall ill or hurt themselves, and healthcare 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 a 2019 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
