No Title 2735
Supplement to “Kentucky Living Road to Better Health”
Business motivates employees to embrace wellness
Rheumatoid arthritis health success story
Need help? Use our health resources listing
In thinking about health we often fixate on the numbers—your blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol levels. But some of the most important indications of good health elude mathematical expression.
“There are so many factors that we can’t put a number to that are just as important as the ones we can put a number to,” says Jan Winter, founder and executive director of the Kentucky Children’s Health and Fitness Fund. “These are things that can have a distinct effect on your health, and just because we can’t narrow them down to a single number that can be measured after a waking fast, doesn’t mean they should be discounted.”
Winter supplied this list of those other factors.
1. Average weight for height
2. Energetic pursuit of daily life
3. Daily, easy bowel movements
4. Regular deep and restful sleep
5. Strong fingernails free of ridges and white spots
6. Clear eyes
7. Strong immunity to colds, flu, and allergies
8. Strong and shiny hair
9. Clear skin
10. Clear thinking (no “brain fog”)
11. Freedom from persistent aches and pains
12. Healthy sex drive
13. Healthy and firm gums (no bleeding when brushing)
14. Calm and stable emotions, generally joyful and adaptable
15. Sense of humor and positive social involvement
There’s a lot of health information—and—misinformation—out there. The language of medicine can be confusing. There’s an intimidation factor in many healthcare situations.
How can the average person navigate through these circumstances and come to a helpful understanding of what he or she needs to do?
Here are tips from several people concerned with health literacy—a term defined by Pam Mullaney, director of membership services for the Kentucky Hospital Association, as “a patient’s ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.”
Bring it to your doctor. If you’ve heard about a medicine you’re interested in, or read about a study that suggests you might benefit from changing your diet, consult the person you’ve put in charge of your health. “Healthcare professionals are the ones who can help you sift through that massive amount of information that we all get confronted with and focus on the (bits of information) that can be strategies that are specific to you,” says Jan Winter.
Have your own agenda. “Doctor visits are brief. The doctor isn’t coming to your house anymore, observing your general lifestyle and getting to know you—that can take a while,” says Winter. “So it’s incumbent on the consumer to be aware of his or her options and be the initiator of those conversations.” Mullaney suggests you ask any questions you have at the beginning of the visit “so that the physician can work those questions in as they provide you information about taking care of yourself.”
Make a record. Take notes during your appointment, either in writing or using a recording advice. Or bring someone with you, especially if you might be getting bad news—in addition to the emotional support, the second set of ears will be calmer and more objective.
Read. Charles Jackson, who heads the executive committee of Health Literacy Kentucky, says studies show that 50 percent of people take their prescriptions incorrectly—misreading the dose, timing, or other essential information.
Get good info. Jackson points out that health-related questions are the most common inquiries at public library reference desks, so the librarians there should have “years of experience” to direct you to “the best information.” And he points out that medical libraries at universities are also great resources that are free to the public.
Be honest—with your doctor and yourself. “People are afraid to talk to their doctor—they’re afraid to tell their doctor the truth because they’re afraid to tell themselves the truth,” says Winter. “That’s the bottom-line issue that we’re dealing with—it isn’t that we’re incapable, it’s that we’re unwilling.”
Know what’s coming to you. Healthcare plans vary widely in what they cover, and many people are eligible for benefits of which they’re unaware. According to Jill J. Bell, vice president of public affairs at Passport Health Plan, through a public awareness and enrollment initiative, in the past three years Passport has assisted the state in enrolling 16,000 children in Medicaid. These children were eligible but their families didn’t know about the program. Passport provides Medicaid coverage to more than 170,000 members in a 16-county area, including Louisville.
Business motivates employees to embrace wellness
As the costs of risky health behaviors become clearer, Kentucky employers have begun looking at ways they can assist and motivate their employees in improving their health behaviors.
R. J. Corman, a Nicholasville-based company with a variety of interests connected to railroads—everything from derailment services to running My Old Kentucky Dinner Train—has over the last three years instituted an extensive and growing set of programs and facilities aimed at improving their employees’ health. The company has about 1,000 employees, more than 400 of them at their Nicholasville headquarters.
Founder Richard J. Corman is a runner and a cancer survivor. Wellness manager Ashley Howard says, “It is a part of the company’s culture to offer opportunities for employees so that they can take better care of their physical health while they can make choices that can improve their lives. We do not want them to wait until disease forces change upon them. This is something that is very important to Mr. Corman.”
R. J. Corman’s Wellness Program is holistic—it includes efforts that address not only physical health but also emotional, spiritual, and even financial health. Financial health is addressed in the context of managing stress that can arise around the lack of effective budgeting. The spiritual wellness component takes into consideration such topics as volunteerism, with the goal of encouraging strong personal values. The company also offers incentives such as gift cards for employees who participate in wellness incentives. R. J. Corman has partnered with Saint Joseph Health Systems to offer health screenings and medical speakers, registered nurses, and consulting dietitians at no cost to employees. Its Nicholasville headquarters has walking paths, a 5K running and biking course, and a newly built fitness center with strength and cardio equipment, a track, and locker rooms.
John Maxwell, R. J. Corman Railroad Group’s vice president of people services, believes the program is having positive effects on the company’s health insurance rates—they’ve gone up less than the average national increases (although he cautions there are many factors involved in determining insurance rates as well).
And it’s had other effects: “We’ve noticed a higher level of engagement, a higher level of productivity. When employees come back from exercising at lunch, they seem more energized,” Maxwell says. Howard says that the results from their health screenings show impressive changes in body mass index, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.
Rheumatoid arthritis health success story
In June we asked readers to submit their health success stories. Sarah Pait, a Salt River Electric Cooperative member, sent in her story dealing with rheumatoid arthritis.
In early 2009, Pait experienced painful swelling and irritation in her joints and skin.
“It was terrible,” she recalls. She was driving 25 miles to and from her home in Shepherdsville to her lab job at the University of Louisville Hospital. (She’s since retired.) “Even just driving that distance, the pain in my arms was so bad, I’d almost feel like crying, it hurt so bad.” It was painful to make any kind of fine movement with her fingers; it even hurt to feed herself.
That March she received a preliminary diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), finalized in May. Her doctor prescribed a medication, but Pait says when she started reading about common medicines for RA, they only treated symptoms and “didn’t get to the root of the problem.”
What rang true for her was the argument of alternative medicine that, as she puts it, “you need to correct the body’s deficiencies and problems.”
She looked at her diet. She’d been eating a lot of fast food. The recommendation that you should eat five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily made her scoff: “I don’t get that in a month!”
Then Pait discovered that RA is an autoimmune disorder, and that gluten—found in wheat, rye, spelt, and barley—and dairy products were believed to contribute to that kind of ailment.
She’d suspected for a while that she had a problem with cow’s milk. It wasn’t hard for her to give up drinking it: “The hard thing was the ice cream!” And when she eliminated gluten, which also meant eliminating most processed foods, substituted fish and nuts for red meat, and upped her intake of raw fruits and vegetables, she noticed big changes in her RA. This past March was the first time in two years her skin had been pain-free, and that has continued, although she’s occasionally felt tightness in her legs, and she continues to feel osteoarthritis in her hands.
“I recommend anybody who has any kind of health problem to get busy and do some research on it themselves,” she says. “I think we should be responsible for ourselves.”
Editor’s Note: While there is considerable debate about alternative and traditional medicine approaches to RA and other diseases, Dr. Michael Edwards, a board-certified rheumatologist who teaches at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, says Pait’s experience is “out of the mainstream.” Her dietary changes “are unproven therapies” for RA, he says, adding that diet plays “a pretty limited role” in rheumatoid arthritis.
Need help? Use our health resources listing
Here’s a list of health resources—many of then online—that can provide information and support for your own efforts to change your health.
Children’s Health
www.kchff.org
The Kentucky Children’s Health and Fitness Fund creates and distributes the Fit4Fun Reader that teaches about healthy living to all Kentucky public elementary schools. It includes free resources for a child’s most important health education partners—parents and guardians. You can download every issue from the Web site, as well as a teacher’s guide, for free.
www.kidshealth.org
KidsHealth provides information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years. Special sections for parents, kids, and teens.
www.weigh2rock.com
Weigh2Rock! offers online health and weight loss education, an online support community of several thousand overweight kids, teens, and parents from around the world, and self-managed personal weight loss charts and goal setting.
http://take.actionforhealthykids.org
Kentucky Action for Healthy Kids is part of the nation’s largest volunteer network fighting childhood obesity and undernourishment by helping schools become healthier places.
Adult Health
www.fitky.org
The Partnership for a Fit Kentucky promotes nutrition and physically active communities.
www.kyhealthnews.blogspot.com
Events, trends, issues, ideas, and journalism about healthcare and health in Kentucky.
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus
One-stop shopping for all health information needs, including info about drugs and herbals. Has videos, interactive tutorials, and lots of other “cool tools.”
www.samhsa.gov
For help with substance abuse, alcohol and drug problems, and mental health.
www.nami.org
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) supports people with mental illness and their families and friends.
www.choosemyplate.gov
The USDA’s most recent guidelines for healthy eating.
www.ahrq.gov
An enormous resource, the Web site of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality contains a section for consumers and patients that includes a section called “Questions Are the Answer” that helps you build your own healthcare queries in advance of a visit to the doctor, pharmacist, or other provider.
Health Literacy for Healthcare Providers
www.ehealth.ky.gov
The Kentucky e-Health Network supports statewide adoption of health information technology and interoperable health information exchange.
Tobacco Cessation Resources
www.smokefree.gov
Packed with information and tools. Its “quit guide,” Clearing the Air, is easy to follow, well-structured but not too long. Good section on couples interaction; “Talk to an Expert” page allows you to instant message a smoking cessation counselor.
www.becomeanex.org
Straightforward, with a helpful focus on helping smokers redefine themselves. Its quit guide is more involved than Clearing the Air, but longstanding smokers find the calendar trackers useful. Has an iPhone app.
www.quitnet.com
Has a lighter tone with cartoon figures, and a more interactive interface than the previous sites.
www.mylastdip.com
Well-regarded site for quitting smokeless tobacco.
Kentucky Tobacco Quit Line
Free tobacco cessation assistance is available daily from 8 a.m.-1 a.m. (EDT) at 1-800-QUITNOW (1-800-784-8669).
To read the Kentucky Living November 2011 feature that goes along with this supplement, go to Kentucky Living Road to Better Health.
