|
Family
health history- 2
Traveling with your medical records
by Wendy Angst
Whether a camping reunion to Colorado or a beach getaway to Florida, you can now travel with your personal health records (PHRs) wherever your reunion is.
You can use PHRs to access health, medical and insurance information and have emergency information available. PHRs available to consumers include online websites, cell phone applications and portable USB flash drives.
Family reunions offer a great opportunity to build a multi-generation family medical history, and PHRs are great repositories for such helpful information. People usually focus on their own records; but knowing a close relative's allergies, past surgeries or curr
nt treatments helps you better understand your own health.
Traditionally, medical records have been maintained on paper. Today, electronic health records offer flexible options and several choices for storage, management and information sharing.
At a minimum, a PHR should enable you to record personal medical history information. A full PHR contains immunization records, lab reports, x-rays or other films, physician contact information, known allergies, lists of medications and pharmacy information that enable emergency doctors to treat a patient without having to wait for their medical history. An emergency PHR contains information such as blood type, physician's contact information, a list of medications and known allergies.
An online PHR provides consumers with secure access from any computer to their personal health information with the click of a mouse. This is helpful at a reunion, if the group is using a portable laptop to gather family histories. Some PHR users receive a sticker for their phone to alert professionals. Each application ensures secure, full access to health information.
About the author
Wendy Angst, is general manager of CapMed, which makes an Online PHR and an icePHR (in case of emergency).
Family
medical secrets: who should you tell?
by Fran Carlson
As a reunion organizer since the early seventies, I went to my 1987
family reunion with a new purpose. I decided to include health history.
I wanted to find out why a simple outpatient, surgical procedure
had caused me to have a near-death experience. It was not a romantic
romp into the good light, and I wanted to be sure it never happened
again.
I
prepared a three-page medical questionnaire to be completed by the
fifty people at our reunion. I wanted to find out if anything in
our family medical history could explain my problem. I was asking
for the most intimate information so I promised confidentiality.
That is, I would accumulate the data and report it by generation,
but I would not divulge who had reported what medical malady without
their permission.
Murphy
Family Reunion includes review of family history
I did follow-up phone interviews. "Didn't you mention once
you had a problem with hypertension? May I add that to your card?
Did you ever have surgery? How many miscarriages did you have?"
I
talked with older family members several times, about their health
and the medical history of family members who died before I was
born.
I
sent for death certificates and was amazed at all the information
I found. I visited cemeteries, checked census records and added
new findings including dates of death. I listened to new medical
stories and continued to talk with elders about medical history.
I
recorded it all and, frankly, had no idea what to make of it. Bunions
here, congestive heart failure there, lung cancer and hypertension.
What information was important and what wasn't? If I produced a
family medical tree should I include family secrets? Every family
has them. Alcoholism, suicide, depression, even obesity might offend
someone. The biggest problem, however, was how to see through all
the data to the patterns that existed.
I
tried using a traditional tree form to record data in boxes. All
I got was a messy form. I tried a computer program. All the data
was there, but it was in bits and pieces. In desperation I organized
a card system and designed the Deck of Life. One card for
each member of the family, with physical problems catalogued on
the front and behavioral or environmental problems on the back.
I scoured medical books to create a medical condition category list
that grouped like-illnesses.
Finally
I started to see related problems. It still took time to read each
card and try to remember one relative's conditions from the next.
Finally, I used crayons to color code by medical categories! My
tree had life!
I
used yellow for drug sensitivities and noticed that at least one
person in each generation had a very negative reaction to medications,
sometimes to the point of death. My grandmother underwent a successful
surgical procedure, but died from the anesthesia. Sound familiar?
She was being taken to the morgue when they realized she was still
alive. Her son died at age five from a flu medication. My mother
came close to death from a blood pressure medication.
I
found my genetic vulnerability. I summarized my information and
made a copy for my family and one for my doctor. The next time I
had surgery, there were two anesthesiologists in attendance and
special equipment. I didn't die, and I'm going to make sure my children
don't die by accident or ignorance.
The
Deck of Life grew into Growing Your Family Medical Tree,
a self-help kit that teaches how to research your medical past and
take charge of your medical present. History does repeat itself.
Genes pass from one generation to the next. A medical legacy is
one of the best that we can leave our families. Help new generations
be aware of medical patterns they may
encounter. Teach them to take charge of their health in a proactive
way.
Have
you signed your donor card?
Barbara J. Nolan, recruiter for the American Red Cross Marrow Donor
Program in Northern Ohio offers an interesting suggestion. She points
out that fatal blood diseases such as leukemia and aplastic anemia
do not discriminate and affect the whole family.
Nolan
suggests including a Marrow Donor Recruitment Drive at your next
family reunion to raise awareness and educate your family about
the need for more marrow donors of all races. Commitment to become
a potential marrow donor is stronger among those who are educated
within the family group. Your own marrow donors can lessen the devastating
situation a family faces when relying on the kindness of strangers
to save the life of a loved one.
Your
Marrow Donor Drive can increase the number of potential marrow donors
in the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. Call Barbara Nolan,
888-862-7769 (toll free).
Health
is in your roots
by Adam Rose
If you’re working on a family tree or even if you’re not,
consider taking advantage of the family being together at your next
reunion and ask some important health and medical questions. A family
health tree informs you of conditions your ancestors suffered from
and alerts future generations to conditions they should watch for.
There
are a few things you should do when compiling this tree. Include
at least three generations; yours, siblings and cousins; your parents,
aunts and uncles and your grandparents and their siblings. Next,
list diseases, age at diagnosis, treatment and where they were treated.
Don’t forget to record depression, alcoholism, addictions,
eating disorders or any other problems encountered. Lifestyle factors
should be included because obesity, smoking, exercise and other
habits may explain health complications that occurred and can have
an impact on future generations. Record the cause, date of death
and age of deceased family members.
This
may sound like a daunting task, but there are ways to make it easy
and fun. Interview relatives at family gatherings. Reunions are
the perfect place to talk to many relatives. Older relatives can
be especially helpful because they may remember details other family
members were too young to notice. Family doctors may be helpful
– they usually have records of family ailments and lifestyle
changes.
If
you’re looking for outside help, there are a few web sites
to try. For research advice go to
www.mayohealth.org and type in "family medical history"
in the search field to access articles from Mayo Clinic experts. www.byub.org/ancestors/records/vital/extra3.html lists materials and services to aid your search and instructions
about medical genealogy.
How
Healthy is Your Family by Carol Krause and The Practical
Guide to the Genetic Family History by Robin Bennett are books
about medical genealogy.
With
help from articles in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and
Everton’s Genealogical Helper.
Tell-tale
hearts
With a generations-long history of heart disease and early death,
Dr. Adriedell Stewart wanted her family to receive the best medical
advice available. As a result, the Stewart Family Reunion has become
something of an annual health fair. In 1996, for example, a team
of physicians from the Oregon Health Sciences University Familial
Dilated Cardiomyopathy Project was on hand to take blood pressure,
measure vital signs and record readings from a heart monitor. In
all, three hundred of the 583 family members became part of an on-going
Oregon heart study. The 1997 Stewart Family Reunion was held in
Kansas City where family members visited a local hospital for physical
exams and EKGs. The whole process took only an hour.
A
word to the wise: Charting individual and family health histories
can help doctors better treat exisiting family conditions. As the
age old adage puts it: "Prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Source:
Nashville Pride
Top of page
|
Reunions Forums 
