Focus on Environmental Home Healthiness During October’s Critical Illness Awareness Month

After being diagnosed with a critical illness, patients may develop a compromised immune system. When that happens, their home must meet certain healthiness standards to place a priority on their well-being.

Prioritizing home healthiness optimizes symptom management and ensures  optimum quality of life. In western North Carolina, with a rapidly aging population, it’s not unusual to talk about “aging in place,” and similar topics. You can read A Healthier Home’s recent blog post, “Family Home: Evaluate the Seasons of Life at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” to learn more about spotting maintenance, safety, and environmental healthiness concerns for aging family members.

But a diagnosis with a critical illness is a life-altering event. As October is Critical Illness Awareness Month, we feel it’s important to add to the dialogue related to critical illness prevention, treatment, and patient care, particularly for patients who wish to remain at home. Doing so raises questions of how environmental factors can impact health. Each individual can choose to live as fully as possible despite their prognosis, and their right to do that is something we believe in.

After a diagnosis, environmental impacts in the home must be considered. In family conversations with advisors, information about the home environment tends toward daily activities, such as cleaning, mowing, or modifications for disability access. While those are fine places to begin the adjustment process,  the question of whether the home is healthy enough to support optimum wellness should also be considered. An unhealthy home can further complicate an already compromised immune response.

When it’s health that matters most, start with a system-level examination of the home ecosystem with optimum health and wellness in mind.  Believe it or not, unfavorable conditions in the home ecosystem can actually trigger the onset of serious illness and its symptoms. Fighting the negative elements in the environment can support the individual in the fight to preserve the positive aspects of living.

Approximately three dozen common diagnoses are considered to be a “critical illness.” According to NationalToday.com, almost 1.5 million Americans suffer a stroke or heart attack each year, and the numbers are comparable for cancer diagnoses and other critical illnesses. In cases like these, an environmental intervention, or EnviroVention™ is warranted.

An EnviroVention™ prioritizes optimum wellness, examining the home ecosystem through the lens of a diagnosed illness to eradicate likely triggers, improved symptom management, and monitor changing environmental conditions which could negatively affect quality of life.

My team and I start with the specific diagnosis or physical conditions, then identify the most critical areas of concern in the environment. In addition to recommending corrective measures, we work in alignment with the person’s family and care team to create the best possible conditions in the home and support the individual’s fight to manage their disease.

In critical illnesses, symptom management can be an ongoing concern. In the home, as in the patient, it’s important to address the underlying causes in order to effectively alleviate identified problems. For example, mold or mildew issues can definitely exacerbate symptoms or compromise immunity.  Essentially, when there is already a diagnosis, evaluating the presence of mold or other environmental healthiness conditions is a process not to be overlooked.

Critical illness can initiate particular interest in home environmental healthiness year-round, not simply in October. Let us know if we can help.

Read Rick’s guest blog for the Green Builder’s Alliance on “The Importance of Home Healthiness After a Diagnosis.”