The panel "Age-Related Diseases - Prevention - Diagnosis - Treatment" began and ended with a discussion of how much we are losing, as a society, as a health care system, due to the fact that Poles (and Polish women) are still reaching for tobacco products. Dr. Malgorzata Czajkowska-Malinowska, national consultant in lung diseases and president of the Polish Lung Association, stressed that lung cancer is the main killer among cancers, but the patient profile has changed somewhat. When, relatively recently, lung cancer mainly affected and killed men, now there are more and more women among patients. This is the result of a "revolution in customs": on the one hand, there was no shortage of very successful anti-smoking campaigns in the 1990s, which prompted primarily men to quit smoking; on the other hand, the percentage of female smokers is rising among women, and the number of those who die of lung cancer after years of smoking is also increasing.
Smoking also influences the development of COPD - once even considered a male disease, but now "equality" is advancing in it as well. But it is also not indifferent from the point of view of other lung diseases that can develop in senior age, such as pulmonary fibrosis or interstitial pneumonia. From the point of view of the health of seniors, an extremely important role is played by pneumococcal vaccination, for which, as the specialist stressed, possible chronic lung diseases are not a contraindication, on the contrary. Equally important, however, for those who reach for tobacco products, is to stop smoking. - Smoking is worth ending at all times, at any age. Also when we have already become ill. With COPD or lung cancer, continuing to smoke increases the risk of complications or cancer recurrence, she reminded.
There is no doubt that one of the key challenges in the area of diseases manifested in senior age is their early diagnosis. Prof. Bożena Walewska-Zielecka, NIZP PZH - PIB, Medicover Scientific Council urged that this should not be equated with prevention. - Of course, it is all very well to detect the disease in advance, but prevention starts earlier. It's about a healthy lifestyle from an early age," she stressed, expressing regret that health education will be introduced into schools as an optional subject. - We will continue to have an uneducated society.
The expert recalled that both longevity and prolongation of years lived in health to a great extent - for the vast majority of people - depend on individual decisions and literally "lie in our hands," and the obstacle to improving indicators is the public's health illiteracy. However, much can be done with concrete interventions. As ...
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