Health care - an everlasting challenge in temporal and spatial domains

Abstract

Health care is an everlasting challenge that requires effort at all levels, from national and organizational to individual domains, over a long-term period. This article reviews the historical development of health care-related issues worldwide and accentuates the necessity of health care in the current era. Through investigating the historical background in both the occidental and the oriental worlds and the latest achievements from academic and industrial endeavors, many lessons can be learnt, and as a result, an integrative strategy is proposed to meet today's pressing needs. A government-funded project, "Challenge to 100 years of age", which involved more than 600 residents in west Aizu village, lasted over 15 years. After reviewing its outcomes, a metrology of health based upon the three-dimensional phase space, which integrates with social well-being, mental status, and physical condition for a lifelong span, is advocated as a measure of the holistic view of health state.

Keywords: health care history; health care worldwide; holistic view; metrology; systematic review; triangle framework.

Figure 1

Change in mortality structure due to different reasons over the previous century in Japan. Note: Drawn from data of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare.

Figure 2

Daoyin gymnastic exercises depicting 44 persons in different postures on silk paper from more than 2000 years ago. Daoyin is a kind of stretching and relaxing gymnastics for health improvement and disease prevention.

Figure 3

Profiles of daily HR, SBP, DBP, BT, and BW data collected from a couple ([a] wife, age 84 and [b] husband, age 85) over a 2-year period. Sporadic blanks indicate no measurement on those days. The bold solid lines are the polynomial approximation of SBP (9th order for [a] and 3rd order for [b]). Most data were measured in the afternoon. Abbreviations: SBP, systolic blood pressure; DBP, diastolic blood pressure; HR, heart rate; BW, body weight; BT, body temperature.

Figure 4

Similarity analysis of the monthly change in the SBP profile by the DTW method. A smaller value indicates a larger similarity with the reference profile. Monthly change in similarity is plotted clockwise from January 2001 to December 2002. Abbreviations: SBP, systolic blood pressure; DTW, dynamic time warping.

Figure 5

A 3D view in the phase space of health state. A lifelong course of health state dynamics, from birth to death crossing different zones, is illustrated. a) indicates a case in which life ceases because of the natural decrepitude. b) indicates a case in which the person succumbs to death due to the disease.