Technology, lifestyle will affect future health care

It's not science fiction. These are medical possibilities that may become realities as we enter a new century, says a Mississippi State professor.

Dr. Shirley Hastings, department head in Home Economics, tracks health trends especially as they relate to lifestyles. She says that the $1.5-billion-a-day health care industry already is responding to consumer demands in the kinds of services provided. Medical science also is tapping into technology to offer possibilities only science fiction writers may earlier have believed.

For those following the current health care debate, the medical future holds promise and challenge, she says.

Among promising developments:

• New technologies are leading to new, less invasive treatments. With magnetic resonance imaging and advanced lasers, among other technologies, physicians are often able to avoid exploratory surgeries. With tools such as advanced lasers, there's often no incision. "With these procedures, there's less trauma, shortened hospital stays and less chance for infection," she notes.
• Research in genetic engineering conducted over the past decades is beginning to come to fruition. On the horizon: gene therapy for such diseases as Alzheimer's and rheumatoid arthritis.
• Genetic counseling and genetic engineering may offer the hope of preventing transmission of serious diseases through family lines.

  "These advances will raise many ethical issues," she points out. "Who has access? What will procedures cost? What are the legalities?"

• Insurance companies will increasingly reward healthy lifestyles by offering reduced rates.

  Today, one-half of the deaths in our country are linked to unhealthy lifestyles, Hastings said. That number will decline significantly in the future because people will make healthy choices.

• Once-in-a-lifetime immunizations are a possibility. "We may be able to vaccinate children for colds, flu or even cancer, and the shot will be good for life."

  Among challenges:

• Some hospitals, especially rural ones, will close because they can't afford to keep pace with technology.
• There will be increasing demand on long-term health care services. "Today more than six million people over 65 have some kind of long-term health care," Hastings noted. "By 2000, that number will be nine million."
• Medical advances will prolong the life span of young people who are disabled and chronically ill. "By 2000, 40 percent of the people who need long-term care will be young people."
• AIDS will continue to be an issue for the future, with the next wave of the disease predicted for Asia.