In general, preventive care refers to measures taken to prevent diseases instead of curing or treating the symptoms.
The three levels of preventive care are detailed below:
Primary Prevention aims to avoid the development of a disease or disability in healthy individuals.
Exemples: promotion of physical activity and a healthy diet, less consumtion of alcool and smoking cessation.
Benefits of Mindfulness as a primary prevention strategy
I belive a Mindful lifestyle is crucial for maintaining levels of good health on the level of the mind and body. As you establish mindfulness as practice that you do daily your are much less prone do anxiety or depression, having a more positive mindset you also have grater capacity to overcome chalenging situations. Being aware of the body you give more focused attention to what you eat, how much you sleep, how you feel, and overall to the choices you make in life.Mindfulness as a major stress reduction tool, as a primary strategy, is reducing the probability to develop for exemple cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes type II, and high blood pressure.
Secondary Prevention aims to early disease detection, making it possible to prevent the worsening of the disease and the emergence of symptoms, or to minimize complications and limit disabilities before the disease becomes severe.
Exemples: screening or diagnostic testing.
Benefits of Mindfulness as a secondary prevention strategy
Mindfulness is not a tool for diagnose of ilness, nevertheless, if you practice mindfulness your levels of body-mind awareness are much more refined, and it is possible to detect for example a persistant type o sensation in a specific area of the body which can be an alarm for going to check it. In this sense, you would be able to detect any anomaly before this has already been established as a disease.
Tertiary Prevention aims to reduce the negative impact of an already-established disease by restoring function and reducing disease-related complications, focusing on improving the quality of life.
Exemples:replacement of missing teeth, or insulin therapy for diabetes.
Benefits of Mindfulness as a tertiary prevention strategy
Mindfluness also has a considerable effect in improving the quality of life for people suffering from cronic disease/pain. Chronic diseases are associated with a range of unwelcome psychological and physical consequences. Studies show that participating in an MBSR program improves the capacity to cope better with symptoms, improves overall well-being and quality of life, and enhances health outcomes.
Bibligraphy:
Richard H. Carmona, Mark Liponis. Integrative Preventive Medicine. Weil integrative Medicine Library. I leave the link for buying here.