Thursday, April 29, 2010

The ugly truth

A 2006 study shows that visual aids showing the severity of their condition (as opposed to data) were a far stronger incentive for patients to stay on their medicine.

Researchers studied 505 asymptomatic patients on statin therapy who had their arteries examined by electron beam tomography, which produces a picture of arterial plaque. Each patient looked at the actual scan, which clearly showed the artery-blocking plaque as bright white spots.

The patients were informed of the severity of blockage, and the researchers explained the consequences related to heart disease.

After controlling for age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, tobacco use and family history, the amount of plaque seen on the scan at the outset of the study remained an independent predictor that a patient would stay on a prescribed lipid-lowering medicine.

The more severe the plaque accumulation, the more likely the patients were to stay on their medicine. Among the 25 percent of the participants with the least severe buildup, 53 percent were still on their regimens when researchers followed up an average of three and a half years later. By contrast, among the 25 percent with the most severe accumulation, 92 percent were still taking their drugs.

Full article: http://nyti.ms/9Wxjoc


“Though he sees others dying all around him, no man believes that he himself will die.” Krishna

“Nothing so sharpens the mind as the footfalls of the hangman.” Christopher Marlowe

Of course it’s nice to have peer-reviewed empirical evidence to back it up.

From medrants.com here

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