From MDPI: "The Transition to Noncommunicable Disease: How to Reduce Its Unsustainable Global Burden by Increasing Cognitive Access to Health Self-Management"

https://www.mdpi.com/1396952:

The Transition to Noncommunicable Disease: How to Reduce Its Unsustainable Global Burden by Increasing Cognitive Access to Health Self-Management

Abstract: The global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, is creating unsustainable burdens on health systems worldwide. NCDs are treatable but not curable. They are less amenable to top-down prevention and control than are the infectious diseases now in retreat. NCDs are mostly preventable, but only individuals themselves have the power to prevent and manage the diseases to which the enticements of modernity and rising prosperity have made them so susceptible (e.g., tobacco, fat-salt-carbohydrate laden food products). Rates of nonadherence to healthcare regimens for controlling NCDs are high, despite the predictable long-term ravages of not self-managing an NCD effectively. I use international data on adult functional literacy to show why the cognitive demands of today’s NCD self-management (NCD-SM) regimens invite nonadherence, especially among individuals of below-average or declining cognitive capacity. I then describe ways to improve the cognitive accessibility of NCD-SM regimens, where required, so that more patients are better able and motivated to[...]


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