Six in 10 adults have at least one chronic health condition. These health problems aren’t curable, but with chronic disease management provided by Keviene Rutherford, MD, and the other experienced providers at Rutherford Medical Center, you can stay healthy and enjoy a thriving life. They offer comprehensive chronic disease management for complex conditions and have a proven track record of helping patients avoid hospitalization. Call the office in Alpharetta, Georgia, or schedule an in-person or telehealth appointment online today.

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Why do I need chronic disease management?

Physicians can’t cure chronic diseases with the treatments currently available. After the disease develops, these conditions are progressive, causing increasing damage and increasing the risk of life-threatening events like heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure.

Chronic disease management provides the medical treatment you need from your primary care provider to ease symptoms, slow disease progression, live longer, and maintain the highest possible quality of life.

What conditions need chronic disease management?

Disease management is essential for all chronic conditions. A few of the most common include:

  • Heart disease
  • High blood pressure
  • High cholesterol
  • Diabetes
  • Arthritis
  • Asthma
  • Chronic kidney disease
  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are also chronic health conditions.

How are chronic diseases managed?

Your Rutherford Medical Center provider carefully evaluates all your body systems, explores your symptoms, and identifies the root cause of your condition.

Once they know the cause, they create a care plan targeting your unique health needs. The goal for managing a chronic disease is to keep biomarkers within the healthy range.

Biomarkers are measurable factors inside your body. Your provider uses them to diagnose diseases and evaluate the severity of your condition.

The most common biomarkers are cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and inflammatory substances. However, many chronic diseases have more complex biomarkers.

Your Rutherford Medical Center provider uses two primary treatments to manage chronic diseases:

Lifestyle interventions

Lifestyle changes have an essential role in preventing and treating disease. Most chronic diseases develop gradually over many years and are caused by lifestyle habits, such as:

  • Unhealthy diet (too much sugar, salt, calories, and refined foods)
  • Lack of exercise
  • Ongoing stress
  • Being overweight or obese
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol abuse

After your Rutherford Medical Center provider diagnoses a chronic condition, improving your lifestyle helps slow or stop disease progression and relieves symptoms.

For example, if you have Type 2 diabetes, monitoring carbohydrate consumption, getting more exercise, and losing weight may be all you need to keep your blood sugar in the healthy range.

Maintaining steady blood sugar levels prevents complications like nerve damage and cardiovascular disease.

Medications

Your provider prescribes medications if lifestyle modifications don’t improve your health or your chronic disease is in an advanced stage, and you need more than dietary or exercise changes to lower biomarkers.

Book online or call Rutherford Medical Center today to learn about chronic disease management.