Chronic disease management is a big issue in modern medical care: Hypertension, diabetes, asthma, obesity and allergies are among the conditions that can severely impinge on people’s lives, raise their medical bills and even lead to premature death. It is not surprising that health-care practitioners may try to frighten people with chronic disease into changing their lifestyles and getting care: Lose weight or you may have a heart attack. Manage your insulin or you may lose a limb. Take these meds or you may have a stroke.
chronic disease … 慢性疾患
asthma … ぜんそく
impinge on … ～に影響を与える、～を侵害する
premature death … 早死
health-care practitioners … 医療関係者
frighten A with B … BでAを怖がらせる
frighten A into B … Aを脅してBをさせる
limb … 手足
stroke … 脳卒中
Heather Alva, a medical student, offers a more positive strategy: Introduce new patients to what she calls mentors — older patients who have successfully lived with chronic disease. Give them someone to emulate.
mentor … 良き指導者、助言者
emulate … 見習う、手本とする
Writing on the doctors’ blog KevinMD.com, Alva says that she has had diabetes for 15 years and was first scandalized and then heartened when she attended a panel discussion by older patients. One of them, a jovial, white-bearded attorney with a veteran’s pin in his lapel, had an amputated leg, a “comorbidity most patients with diabetes are taught to live their lives avoiding, even dreading.” But the attorney winked as he said, “That leg was a damn nuisance anyhow, at least near the end. They don’t take the legs that still work.”
scandalize … 憤慨させる
hearten … 元気づける、勇気づける
jovial … 陽気な
attorney … 法律家
lapel … 襟の折り返し、下襟
amputate … （手足を）切断する
comorbidity … 合併症
dread … ひどく怖がる
anyhow … どうせ、いずれにしても
That sense of optimism became a key part of Alva’s personal approach to her disease — not because she took less care of herself but because she adopted “elements of self-forgiveness and resilience so that I can pursue health in whatever capacity I am able.”
forgiveness … 寛容、寛大さ
resilience … 回復力、立ち直る力
Instead of employing scare tactics to motivate patients, she writes, it would be “a kinder practice to link our patients to other patients: successful individuals who lead rich, happy, fulfilling lives.”
tactics … 戦術
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