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In a press release published on June 8, 2023, the National Academy of Medicine says it is in favor of the “personalized prevention” of the elderly with a loss of autonomy or who are evolving towards these situations. The goal? Allow them to age in good health for as long as possible to reduce the costs of their medical care.
Sick elderly people “more expensive in terms of care”
“This elderly population, the most expensive in terms of care, very generally suffers from many chronic diseases and functional disabilities”, indicates the Academy of Medicine in a press release. Based on this observation, it would like to extend the concept of “precision medicine”, and more precisely “personalized prevention”, to aging populations with a loss of autonomy or who will soon find themselves in these situations.
As a reminder, precision medicine is a medical discipline that uses biological, environmental or social data specific to the patient to predict the probability that he will develop a particular disease. Once these predictions are established, targeted preventive measures can be put in place, diagnoses can be refined and proposed treatments are personalized.
What is personalized prevention?
Personalized prevention consists in identifying for a patient risk factors on which it is possible to act in order to reduce his risk of heart disease, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, depressive disorders, cancers. Diseases that develop silently or insidiously and whose prognosis is difficult to estimate before the appearance of visible clinical symptoms. Personalized prevention would also make it possible to control the impact of these diseases on the health and autonomy of those affected. Finally, the Academy of Medicine insists on the need for personalized prevention in these populations to avoid the “skyrocketing costs” induced by their health care.
More monitoring of the health of seniors
The Academy also calls for greater use of continuous health monitoring devices (in addition to annual medical visits) for seniors with a loss of autonomy. Tools “which will provide a higher resolution image of the risks incurred and the first signs of disease, with a view to redefining the statuses ‘asymptomatic’ and ‘presymptomatic’‘”. It also recalls the importance and usefulness of portable precision technologies (connected watch for example) to obtain the physiological data of each patient and to monitor their state of functional health in an objective manner. A collection of valuable data that will help in risk screening, disease diagnosis and seven-day prediction of worsening chronic disease.
The recommendations of the Academy of Medicine
The Academy has formulated several recommendations for health professionals and public authorities:
- Personalize prevention actions by generating a real-time “movie” of an individual’s health, with identification of the periods during which interventions would be most effective in improving “aging well”;
- Set up prevention campaigns targeting the key ages of life (40-45 and 60-65);
- Release a budget dedicated to health prevention policies that contribute to the development of personalized prevention.
Slide: How to age well?