Tracking your medical history puts you in charge of your health.
When it comes to your health, you can be in control and proactive to prevent potential illness or disease. By knowing your risk factors and understanding how to address them, you can set yourself up for the best possible outcome.
The first step to managing your medical care is knowing and tracking your medical history. Knowing your current health status and family history, you can identify areas where you may need to make lifestyle adjustments.
For example, if you know diabetes runs in your family, you should focus on exercising and eating clean meals to help prevent or prolong them from affecting you. While in some cases these hereditary conditions are inevitable, knowing your medical history will help you prepare and live a healthier life.
In this article, we’ll take a look at a few reasons to keep track of your medical history and discuss things that it will include. Here’s a quick look at what we’ll cover:
- How to stay on top of your health
- How to keep track of your medication
- How to stay ahead of hereditary conditions
- Things you’ll expect to see in your medical history documents
Keeping Track of Your Medical History is Important
If you aren’t keeping track of your medical history, you could be putting your health at risk and missing important warning signs to potential issues. To stay on top of your health you’ll need to consider a variety of things including signs from your body, family history, and current medications. Let’s take a closer look at why each of these items are important to keep track of.
Always listen to your body. Staying active can help your mind and body in a variety of ways and might be just what you need.
Stay on Top of Your Health
No one knows your body better than you. Keeping track of what is going on with your health will allow you to identify any potential issues that arise. Knowing your medical history is important when this happens to compare previous symptoms or identify anything that may have a connection.
While it’s important for your doctors to keep track of your medical history, you also need to be aware of it to stay on top of your health. If you find that you need to visit a new doctor or are in need of emergency care, your doctor may not be around to provide all the details of your medical history.
That’s why it’s so important for you to take the time to document and understand your medical history. You need to know everything from current symptoms, previous diagnosis, and family history to ensure you provide doctors with the full picture.
When taking multiple types of medication, it can be easy to forget what a pill is called or when to take it. Tracking your medical history can be extremely important when it comes to managing your medicine.
Keep Track of Medication
Combining certain medications can cause unwanted or devastating results. Having a record of all the medication you are currently taking and knowing what you’ve taken in the past will help you avoid mixing anything that could cause more harm than good.
Trying to remember the name of every pill can get confusing and you don’t want to tell your doctor the wrong medication name. That’s why keeping up-to-date medical records will help you effectively manage your medications.
If you choose to manage your medical history digitally, you can simply pull up the information on your app or smartphone and share the details with your doctor. With accurate medical records, you’ll no longer have to question whether you’re providing the right details or missing a medication.
Knowing your family history will help you stay proactive to any potential health concerns. It also helps you pass that information down to your children.
Be Aware of Potential Health Risks
Including your family history in your medical records is just as important as keeping your personal information up-to-date. This is because it allows you and your doctors to understand what diseases and disorders you may be genetically linked to.
When looking at your family history, you’ll want to know about any conditions of your immediate family members, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. This will help you have a holistic view of any hereditary health concerns you may have.
A few common conditions that are important to know from your family history include:
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Cancer
- Stroke
- Alzheimer’s or dementia
Knowing that you may be at risk for certain health conditions will allow you to monitor and adjust your lifestyle accordingly. Many of these conditions can be prevented by simply making healthy lifestyle changes.
Your medical records can be tracked by both your doctor and yourself and can include a variety of different pieces of information.
Things That Are Included in Your Medical History Documentation
So now that you have an understanding of why it’s so important to keep track of your medical records, you may be wondering what should be included in them. While you can probably guess some of this from what you just read, there are a few specific things you’ll see when looking at your personal records.
Contact Information
Make sure that your medical records not only include your personal information, but also the information about your emergency contact. This should include their name, address, and phone number that they can be reached. In the event of an emergency when you may not be able to provide the information, your medical records will allow doctors to alert your loved ones.
Lifestyle Habits
You’ll want to make note of some of your lifestyle habits. This includes things such as smoking or drug and alcohol usage. It’s important for doctors to understand your lifestyle to properly treat and monitor your health conditions.
Demographic Details
Your medical records will include your standard demographic details. This includes things such as gender, date of birth, marital status, and employment details. Understanding these details can help track and identify any medical conditions based on age, gender, and other demographic factors.
Medical Information
This is where the bulk of the information will reside in your medical records. It will detail your personal medical history along with any family related concerns that need to be considered. Medical information will be details that you self-report along with documentation added by your doctors. It will include details such as blood type, medications, allergies, any medical diagnosis, past surgeries or injuries, and insurance details.
Staying informed and taking part in understanding your medical history. Frequently talking with your doctor can help you identify any areas of improvement needed.
Stay Informed About Your Health With Accurate Medical Records
Keeping your medical records up-to-date and accurate is a very important step in your healthcare journey. Whether you’re simply tracking it for peace of mind or need to manage a specific condition — having your medical records puts you in control of your own health.
Don’t put your health at risk by not knowing what your medical records say. The best thing you can do for your health is to be knowledgeable about your body and proactively address any potential concerns.
Very informative and helpful post that I did not know I needed! I will be forwarding your article to older friends/family members. Sometimes people get so used to taking pills and other forms of medication they forget that it is medication! Taking pills becomes a part of daily routine and often the health benefits/risks are forgotten. This article will help it bring to consciousness how important it is to stay up to date on all your medications.
As I have gotten older I have realized how important knowing my medical history is especially because of my family history. I am going to have to share this with some of my family members so we can get something like this set up for my grandfather so he can stay up to date with medical information.
This has been so beneficial to me. As I get older, I realize how important it is to know about my health and ways to go about the documentation surrounding my health. Definitely gonna keep these reminders and suggestions in mind for myself and my family members.
This post is very informative and emphasizes the importance of keeping track of your medical history. I agree that it is extremely important to ensure that you are healthy and are not taking any health risks. This is the best way to avoid taking risks with your health.
It never really occurred to me to keep track of my own medical history, since i was used to doctors taking care of it, but after reading this article, I most certainly will keep a closer eye on my medical history. I agree in that each individual knows their own body best, so it would be beneficial for the medical community in general if each of us took the time to keep track of our own records, along with records from doctors.
This is such an informative article and really opened my eyes to the importance of keeping a record of my medical history! As I get older and take on new responsibilities, it’s essential to keep my health a priority and keep proper medical documentation of prescriptions or treatments I’ve received. I’ll definitely be sharing this article with some of my older relatives! Thank you for educating me!