Health behaviors (e.g., healthy eating, physical activity, practicing mindfulness) improve overall health (including physical health) and reduce the risk of chronic illnesses. However, in order for people to regularly engage in these behaviors, they need to have the motivation to do so.

Motivation | Connection to Health and Chronic Diseases

Although many people are movtivated to make lifestyle changes, the process of behavior change is usually challenging. Making SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound) goals will help make this process easier to stick to. Goals should be focused on the process rather than just the outcome.

Goal Setting | Importance in Health Psychology

Problem solving is an important skill that helps one overcome obstacles in the way of one's goal (e.g., establishing to and sticking to healthy sleeping habits). For instance, if one is realizing that his travel job is preventing him from getting enough sleep, he may consider switching into another job that allows him to sleep enough rather than inefficiently trying to squeeze out time from his schedule to sleep and spend time with his family.

Problem Solving | Importance in Health Psychology

Stress and anger negatively impact health, leading to higher risk of chronic diseases.

Emotion | Effect on Health

Health psychology is a subfield of psychology that focuses on how human health is affected by the interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors, utilizing an approach known as the biopsychosocial model. Professionals in this field aim to help individuals achieve better health through public policy, education, intervention, and research. Health psychologists often conduct research exploring the connections between a person's genetic makeup, psychological stress, behavioral patterns, relationships, and their overall health outcomes. They also investigate effective ways to motivate people to address behaviors that negatively impact their health.

Health Psychology

- Motivation
- Goal setting
- Problem Solving (overcoming barriers to positive change)
- Emotional Management
- Health Psychology

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- As per NIH, chronic diseases usually last for ≥3 months and can be progressive.
- As per CDC, the deadliest chronic diseases in the US (from most to least deadly) are heart disease, cancer, CLRD, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes.
- People with chronic diseases are more likely to experience severe complications of COVID-19 if they get infected.

Chronic Diseases

- Cancer is a term that refers to a collection of diseases in which some of the body's cells divide uncontrollably and invade surrounding tissues. 
- Cancer can metastasize, i.e., spread to other parts of the body. Metastatic cancer is hard to treat and tends to be fatal. Most cancer deaths are caused by metastasis.

This node should be a relation node, but I can't delete it since it's a root node of the "cancer" tree and it has two upvotes.


Cancer

- According to the WHO, "Cardiovascular disease is the name for the group of disorders of heart and blood vessels."  
- As per WHO, cardiovascular disease includes hypertension, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease,  peripheral vascular disease, heart failure, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease, and cardiomyopathies. 
- Cardiovascular disease is a risk factor for severe COVID-19, and COVID-19 causes cardiovascular complications. 

Cardiovascular disease 

Previous lung disease is a risk factor for mortality in patients with COVID-19. Older age, male gender, home oxygen therapy, and respiratory failure on admission were associated with an increased mortality. 

lung disease

- CKD, also known as chronic renal disease,  is a chronic, non-communicable, irreversible condition where kidney function gradually declines over time.
- However, CKD progression can be slowed down dramatically or even stopped.
- The earlier stages of CKD are usually asymptomatic.
- Diabetes and high blood pressure cause almost two-thirds of CKD cases.
- Source: https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/about-chronic-kidney-disease

Chronic Kidney Disease

During the COVID-19 era the regular treatment and communication between physicians and patients regarding preexisting comorbidities has been disrupted. New guidelines and safety precautions must be put in place in order for physicians to still treat their patients and treat them through the use of telehealth or other means. While there are a lot of similarities between new communication policies being implemented across different areas of medicine, there are also many differences due to comorbidity specific criteria which facilitates different levels of involvement and communication between physicians and patients.


The comorbidities addressed under this node include:
- Cancer
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Digestive Diseases
- Elective Surgeries
- Liver Diseases
- Psychological Disorders
- Renal Diseases

Changes to COVID-19 Patient Comorbidity Treatment and Communication

Diabetes is a collection of diseases in which blood glucose levels (i.e., blood sugar) is too high. The most common types of diabetes are type II diabetes, type I diabetes, gestational diabetes, and prediabetes.



Diabetes

- Alzheimer's disease is a progressive chronic disease. It's "a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking and behavior"; over time, these symptoms progressively interfere with daily tasks.
- It's the 6th leading cause of death. Current treatments can alleviate the symptoms but can't stop the progression of Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's Disease

Neurodegenerative diseases refers to neurological diseases caused by neuronal death or deterioration due to many factors, including protein aggregation/misfolding, apoptosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction. 

Neurodegenerative Diseases

Link between Psychology and Chronic Diseases

Since mindfulness meditation can alleviate symptoms of distress, pain, and chronic disease, it can be used to treat hallucinations and delusions experienced by schizophrenic patients. 

What Symptoms Mindfulness Meditation can help Treat in Patients with Severe Schizophrenia

- Cystic fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Multiple sclerosis
- Cancers
- AIDS
- Hemophilia
- Epilepsy
- Hepatitis
- Hyperhidrosis
- Musculoskeletal Disorders
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Long COVID

List of Medical Disabilities

Abnormally excessive sweating that is often unrelated to body temperature nor exercise. Known as the silent disorder, this is a widespread condition that affects almost 3% of the population. Currently, solutions to alleviate the condition either serve as temporary solutions or cause many other side effects.

Hyperhidrosis

"Chronic pain management" or "pain management" typically refers to the practice of employing pain killing medicines, psychological therapy/ practices, and/ or managing/ controlling the environment of the patient/ sufferer in order to lessen or mitigate the pain they feel or else make the pain in question more manageable.

Chronic Pain Management

Chronic pain is often a symptom of chronic conditions/ disabilities, though not always. In the medical sphere, "chronic pain" is defined as pain that may be constant in some sense of come and go. Or, in the case of conditions that may have a cure or may "heal", chronic pain is defined as pain that lasts longer than three to six months.

Chronic Pain

Chronic illness increases the likelihood of comorbid conditions such as mental illness and other physical conditions, a lower quality of life, increased cost of healthcare, and complications from a failure to manage the condition(s) properly. 

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