DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION TO LEARN MORE: NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL
DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION TO LEARN MORE:NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL
WHY DO WE FALL ILL
POINTS TO REMEMBER
- Health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being. It also depends on the physical surrounding and the economic status of human being.
- Literally the term ‘Health’ means “being well’ or ‘well-being’ as effective functioning.
- Health and poor health reflect the state of body, mind and behaviour that realise attitude of a person.
- A ‘healthy attitude’ refers to a balanced state of body and mind where a person performs any activity with perfection.
- The positive healthy attitude influences the environment of internal world and external world.
- The important factors observed as personal and community issues for health are social environments, public cleanliness, economic status, social equality and harmony and food nature and resources
- Disease means being uncomfortable. There must be a specific and particular cause for discomfort.
- In human, disease refers to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress and social problems. A disease can alter one’s perspective on life and one’s personality.
- A disease can be confirmed by symptoms and signs of disease. Symptoms of disease are the things we feel as being ‘wrong’. Signs of disease are what physicians will look for on the basis of the symptoms.
- Signs give a little more definite indication of the presence of a particular disease.
- The exact reasons of a disease cannot be known immediately but looked through the signs and symptoms
- Acute diseases last for only very short periods of time and do not cause bad effects on the health. e.g., cough, cold, cholera, etc.
- Chronic diseases last for a long time, even as much as a life time. e.g., elephantiasis, diabetes, cancer, etc.
- Chronic disease is often slow to respond and requires exact assessment of the effects of the remedy on the patient, otherwise it leads to poor health.
- Causes of disease can be described through three levels of cause. The first level of causes of disease refers immediate or primary cause. The immediate cause for infectious disease is pathogen like virus, bacterium, fungus, worm and protozoan. The second level of causes of disease refers contributing cause. The lack of nourishment becomes a second level of cause of diseases. The third levels of causes create due to continued second level of causes.
- The diseases can be classified into two groups mainly: congenital diseases and acquired diseases.
- Congenital diseases occur with the birth of a baby and caused due to defective development of embryo or e.g., haemophilia and colourblindness.
- Acquired diseases are picked up after birth of the baby and may be classified into infectious and non-infectious diseases.
- Infectious or communicable diseases are caused by microbes like viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans. Tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhoca, etc.
- Non-infectious or non-communicable diseases are caused by internal non-infectious or abnormal metabolism in the body. e.g., cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, dwarfism, etc.
- The infectious diseases may sporic, endemic, epidemic a Organisms that can cause disease are called infectious agents. e.g., viruses, bacteria, protozoans, pandemic type. fungi, helminthes (worms).
- Viruses are obligate parasite and sub-microscopic organisms. These are nucleoproteins, i.e, made of nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) and protein. Common examples of diseases caused by viruses are common cold, influenza, dengue fever and AIDS,
- Bacteria are microscopic, unicellular and prokaryotic organisms. The cell wall of bacteria is made of peptidoglycan. Diseases like typhoid fever, cholera, tuberculosis and anthrax are caused by bacteria.
- Protozoans are microscopic, unicellular and eukaryotic organisms, protozoans microbes cause many familiar diseases like malaria (by Plasmodium), kala-azar (by Leishmania), sleeping sickness (by Trypanosoma). giardiasis (by Giardia), amoeboidal dysentry (by Entamoeba), etc.
- Fungi are multicellular, eukaryotic, heterotrophic or saprophytic organisms. Many common infections are caused by different types of fungi.
- Helminthes are multicellular worms and mostly present in intestine. They cause intestinal worm infections. Diseases caused by worms are elephantiasis or filariasis, taeniasis, ascariasis.
- Different types of pathogens causing infectious diseases are transmitted through two major methods, i.e., by direct and indirect transmission.
- Direct transmission occurs by physical contact, sexual contact, animal bites and soil contact, while indirect transmission occurs through air, water and vectors, like mosquitoes, flies, rats, etc.
- The sign and symptoms of a disease will depend on the tissue or organ where the microbe targets. The lung shows symptom through cough and breathlessness, the liver exhibits jaundice and the brain exhibits headache. vomiting and unconsciousness.
- Immune system is a complex of special cells. An active immune system recruits many cells to the affected tissue to kill off the disease causing microbes. This recruitment process is called inflammation.
- Severity of disease determines the number of microbes surviving in the body. The optimum or sufficient number of microbes that make the body diseased is called infective dose.
- If the infective dose is very low, the disease minor or unnoticed but if it is high, the disease can be severe enough to be life threatening.
- Two ways to treat an infectious disease are to reduce the effect of the disease and to kill the cause of the disease.
- Penicillin is the first antibacterial antibiotic and streptomycin is the first antifungal antibiotic.
- Prevention of diseases have two main ways general ways and specific ways.
- The general ways includes-Prevention of over crowding, sanitation, nutrition eradication of vectors and proper education.
- The specific ways are proper immunization through vaccination.
- There are vaccines against tetanus, polio, measles, diphtheria, whopping cough, etc.
- ‘Pulse Polio Immunization Programme’ was launched in 1995-96. This programme covers all the children below the age of three years. The polio drops are given to children twice a year. Only 66cases of polio were reported throughout the country in 2005. Although the effort are continued to achieve the ‘Goal of polio eradictaion’.
DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION TO LEARN MORE:NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL
Table of Contents
NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL
1. State any two conditions essential for good health.
Ans. (i) Hygienic food and clean surroundings.
(ii) A state of being well enough at physical, mental and social level.
2. State any two conditions essential for being free of disease.
Ans. (i) Healthy habitat with safe drinking water and clean environment.
(ii) Adequate and balanced food and proper vaccination against infectious diseases.
3. Are the answers to the above questions necessarily the same or different? Why?
Ans. Different, because being disease free does not mean one is healthy.
4. List any three reasons why you would think that you are sick and ought to see a doctor. If only one of these symptoms were present, would you still go to the doctor? Why or Why not?
Ans. Three reasons of feeling sick and go to the doctor:
(i) Fever (ii) Loose motion and (iii) Prolonged headache.
If anyone of the above three symptoms were present the patient must consult a doctor. The symptoms may make the patient uncomfortable and bed ridden.
5. In which of the following cases do you think the long term effects on your health are likely to be most unpleasant? (i) If you get jaundice (ii) If you get lice (iii) If you get acne. Why?
Ans. Jaundice is the most unpleasant liver disease. During this period, bile pigments collect at several part of our body and damage them permanently. It takes long time to recover under the supervision of a doctor. On the other hand, lice and acne can be removed easily with short treatment.
DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION TO LEARN MORE:NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL
6.Why are we normally advised to take bland and nourishing food when we are sick?
Ans. To strengthen the immune system and provide proper nourishment to body after sick, it is advised to take bland and nourishing food.
7. What are the different means by which infectious diseases are spread?
Ans. The different means to spread infectious diseases are:
(i) Contaminated water and food, e.g., cholera.
(ii) Contaminated air, e.g., cold and cough.
(iii) Physical contact/sexual contact, e.g., AIDS, syphilis.
(iv) Vectors or carriers, e.g., malaria.
8. What precautions can you take in your school to reduce the incidence of infectious diseases?
Ans. Precautions to reduce the incidence of infectious diseases are as follows:
(i) Well aerated and cross ventilated classroom.
(ii) Ban to attend the class by sick students.
(iii) Safe and Reverse Osmosis (RO) drinking water.
(iv) Protection against flies and mosquitoes.
(v) Proper immunization to children, regularly.
(vi) Aware the students about causes and remedies of infectious diseases.
9. What are the immunization programmes available at the nearest health centre in your locality? Which of these diseases are the major health problems in your area?
Ans. The immunization programmes available at the nearest health centre in our locality are:
(i) DTP-for preventing diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and influenza type B.
(ii) Hepatitis B-for preventing hepatitis (jaundice)
(iii) BCG-for preventing tuberculosis.
(iv) Polio-for preventing polio.
The major health problems in our area are measles and diarrhoea.
10. Conduct a survey in your neighbourhood to find out, what the three most common diseases are. Suggest three steps that could be taken by your local authorities to bring down the incidence of these diseases.
Ans. Three most common diseases in my neighbourhood are:
(a) Cough and cold
(b) Diarrhoea and
(c) Typhoid
Three steps taken by my local authorities to bring down the above diseases are:
(a) Providing clean drinking water.
(b) Disposal of garbage, i.e., provide better sanitation
(c) Camp immunization programmes regularly against the above diseases.
DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION TO LEARN MORE:NOTES ON WHY DO WE FALL ILL