If you’ve been to an emergency room and seen an elderly patient, you may not have noticed that their condition is often the same.
In fact, that’s because they’re both patients with chronic, degenerative diseases that have been ignored by medical institutions.
That means doctors don’t have a lot of time to look at each patient individually and understand their underlying health issues.
Instead, they focus on what’s happening in their bodies at a glance, whether that’s breathing, eating, or sleeping.
And because these diseases are so prevalent, they’re also underrepresented in the profession.
A study published in the journal Health Affairs found that just one in four doctors surveyed could explain how a patient’s disease works in terms of its causes, symptoms, and treatments.
And that number is still growing.
The researchers asked 1,000 people how their symptoms fit into a broader health puzzle.
One in five respondents didn’t have enough information to identify a specific disease.
Another in five couldn’t explain the symptoms.
A third couldn’t describe a disease in general.
And a fourth didn’t even have a clue.
And it wasn’t just the patients who weren’t having enough information.
Doctors aren’t doing much to learn more about their patients.
They’re still doing just about everything to educate patients and patients themselves.
To get the most from their time in the hospital, doctors need to understand what their patients are going through, said Dr. David O. Brown, director of clinical education and research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
They need to ask patients more questions and give them the best answers they can to help them deal with their own health issues, Brown said.
“When you have a patient that’s in pain, the primary thing that you can tell them is, ‘What can I do to help alleviate it?’ and the answer is to stay healthy,” Brown said, adding that it’s the only thing that can help ease pain and get better.
When it comes to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis, doctors have been neglecting to learn about the diseases that affect the elderly population.
And this lack of knowledge has made it difficult for doctors to diagnose, treat, and prevent these conditions.
A lack of understanding is a real problem in a world where the elderly are more likely to die in the United States than any other age group.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 3 American seniors are at risk of dying prematurely from a variety of chronic conditions.
And the mortality rate is particularly high among older adults, which is why experts say we should all be paying attention to the needs of the elderly.
Doctors are beginning to recognize the importance of studying aging.
As part of the Mayo Clinic’s research on the causes of death, the medical school has created an online portal to educate doctors and patients on how to better care for their patients, Brown noted.
And recently, a team of Mayo Clinic doctors launched a new online course called Doctors for Careers: Aging Care, which aims to provide doctors with the information they need to help their patients navigate the changing landscape of aging.