Medical and health things we'll be horrified by in the future

[Leavesofautumn]

This is inspired by a recent thread about sunbeds.

What things happen now, that in fifty years time we'll be horrified by in the same way that we're horrified by certain things from Victorian times now, or even things from the 1960s? I'm talking about both medical treatments, and products that are harmful to health. In fact asbestos is still a problem now if certain buildings are being demolished.

Smoking indoors is an obvious one - even now I'm amazed we ever went into a restaurant and specifically had to ask for a non-smoking table.

Sunbeds are already banned in Australia and Brazil.

Prednisolone is a nasty drug and I'd like to see it eventually fall out of use once something better has been invented.

@Squiff70 How common is ECT these days? I've read about it in books from the 1950s but I was under the impression that it was extremely rare these days and only used in exceptional circumstances? I'm horrified that I might be wrong.

The fact that women with endometriosis which is technically a benign cancer, and one of the top 10 most painful conditions were not treated, the condition isn't researched.

Or when they were treated it was with cancer drugs that put them in menopause or they had their insides lasered by non trained surgeon's. Like bunch of "have a go" gynaecologist are allowed to preform surgery on women.

I see more screening not less in the future as they find ways to detect / predict diseases earlier.

I'm surprised at the comments about smears. A friend has just been diagnosed with cervical cancer thanks to a smear. She said she had almost cancelled her appointment as she dislikes the procedure (who doesn't).
Same goes for all screening. Health care should be much more about prevention than treatment when it's too late.

I have recent training in CBT delivered via the IAPT system.
It was dire. We were told, as trainees, to offer CBT to everyone as a 1st option (even those with longstanding psychological difficulties that we should not have been diagnosing / dealing with). We would write to GP's diagnosing Generalised Anxiety Disorder or Severe Depressive Episode. Patients weren't told this clearly at the outset & would often only know when they received a copy of the GP letter.We were told to push 'silver cloud' online sessions as they were cheapest.
Many didn't like them, especially older people. The next cheapest option was 'group sessions'. These were also quite poor & patients tended to either sit in silence or want to dominate the session. 1:1 phone sessions had a long wait, & 1:1 F2F even longer. There was a lack of content (really no more than a slim self help manual could provide) but the most worrying element was that if the patient didn't show signs of speedy recovery it was put down to a lack of effort. Good old 'blame the patient'. I left (partly due to my own health issues but partly as I couldnt' stand the lack of transparency & the culture of patient blame).

CBT is helpful for some patients in some circumstances but it's not a panacea.

I didn't know the folk working for IAPT ever diagnosed anything.

I am still far from convinced future will be better than now, but if one thing might be radically different... attitudes towards sedentary lifestyles. Now it's just a personal choice, But in future it could have morality attached to it. Because of proven bad health links to sedentary lifestyle. Related to that, lack of accessible active transport options. Cities being designed in ways that make active transport so difficult could become deeply frowned upon.

I don’t want to be negative but have a look at Canada and the MAID program as well as the issues going with it. They want to extend it to children too.
The Netherland has quite a few issues around it too.

I don't think you're wrong but the fact that it is used AT ALL horrified me.

I had ECT for treatments resistant major depression which left me suicidal on many many occasions. I also have PTSD which didn't respond much to EMDR or counselling.

I'm much better now, but it's not due to ECT! The improvement came in a bizarre twist of fate!

It's not at all 'common', but it is still in use here and there, and there are still people who swear by it as the only form of treatment that does anything to alleviate their low mood and depressed state. As @Squiff70 points out though, it's also commonly held responsible for making some patients worse, and there are several instances where it's been linked to brain injury and catastrophic loss of cognitive ability.

I'm of the opinion that it is outdated and inherently dangerous, but I also do not doubt the people who insist it works for them because I've seen the evidence of that first hand.

ECT in my limited understanding is a bit like chemotherapy, in that it's crude and brutal and not always effective, but justified for certain otherwise fatal conditions. The difference is that we understand the operation of chemotherapy much better, which helps us improve its use all the time.

ECT is always being improved, too — there have been many changes made over the last century to things like the drugs taken beforehand to prevent physical spasms and awareness, where exactly the current is passed through, the type of current used and length of pulses of electricity, that kind of thing. Arguably the recent use of transcranial magnetic stimulation is an evolution of ECT too.

I wouldn't want it unless it was absolutely necessary, but I also wouldn't want the option removed entirely until we have a better option that never fails where ECT succeeds.

I agree with so many of these.

My experience of CBT has been very negative.
I was actually made to believe that
my IBS was as a result of my relationship with my dad! It was surreal.

Several years later I got signed off from work due to the stress of being put in situations that weren't in my contract.
I developed a fear of public speaking which I kept being asked to do.
Got told to suck it up ( not in those words) or leave. That the problem was my choice.

Problem solved by union . Though I did leave in the end.

Lots of medical tests /procedures are barbaric and shouldn't be done via local/no sedation.

I would have that that, by now, dialysis would have been replaced with something less intrusive and time consuming.

Pregnancy and childbirth hasn't really moved on in decades.

That=thought

Awful 😪

I agree completely. Whilst it's effectiveness for some makes it worth it for them, for others it can cause lasting damage.

I had many rounds of ECT over 2 years, the last treatment being 6 years ago. It soon became apparent to me that ECT had completely erased a period of about 6 years prior to that treatment. Photos of holidays, trips out, family events etc were like looking at somebody else's life. I had no recollection whatsoever of any memories during this period at all. Those memories have still not returned.

The consultant psychiatrist who performed most of the ECT refused to admit that the treatment caused the memory loss and instead blamed thyroid disease which I refute.

It's a bit smoke & mirrors but I trained at Newcastle University (& also in practice at the same time) under the chap the 'wrote the book' that's the CBT 'Bible' in the UK for some years now He described students as 'clinicians' from the get-go, & we assessed people according to various score sheets. If you 'scored high enough' then we wrote to people's GP's saying that they were being treated for either 'Generalised Anxiety Disorder' or '(major) Depressive episode'. It went in their medical records. This was after a few weeks training (which was poor, but it's really the 'treatment' after that's so massively inadequate & gaslighting tbh)

Higher up the IAPT foodchain people were offered Counselling, EMDR & other therapies according to their diagnosis but the main, huge push was flimsy CBT.

@Moonatics I agree. I had treatment for MS that puts me at higher risk if Cervical cancer. I was supposed to have annual smear tests for five years post treatment. But you can't get one done unless its due on the 3-5 yearly cycle. And as I've not got HPV, I can't get one at all!

Thanks @Leavesofautumn a very interesting thread.

OP do you mean you can't get a smear or you can't get a test for HPV? The protocol now is just to test for HPV.