About Incurable diseases

Planning ahead

Advance care planning is a way to plan for future health and personal care so that your values, beliefs and preferences are made known. You can make an advance care statement at any time, but if you have been diagnosed with an incurable illness, you may wish to re-visit your plans or start thinking about them.

What are Incurable Diseases?

Incurable diseases are disorders of infectious, non-infectious, genetic, metabolic, neoplastic or autoimmune nature that do not currently have a cure. Incurable diseases include rare diseases which in 80% of cases are genetic in nature.
These disorders may be highly fatal (e.g. rabies, Ebola) or progress slowly resulting in disabling complications that affect the quality and duration of the life of the patient. Often, these conditions affect both the physical and mental wellbeing of the patient and their close ones requiring counseling and supportive mechanisms for their welfare.

What are the Causes of Incurable Diseases?

Incurable diseases can affect any person in the community. Some of these diseases are genetic in nature while others may be due to unhealthy behaviors, lifestyle and nutrition. Often, the environment plays a role in early onset of the disease.
Some of the causes of incurable diseases include the following

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  Infectious Causes: AIDS, Ebola, poliomyelitis, rabies
  
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  Autoimmune Causes: Systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease
  
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  Genetic Causes: Progeria, Down’s syndrome, Huntington’s disease
  
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  Metabolic Causes: Lipid storage disorders, glycogen storage disease
  
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  Neoplastic Causes: Advanced cancers
  
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  Lifestyle Causes: Diabetes, hypertension
  

What are the Risk factors for Incurable Diseases?

Risk factors for incurable diseases include non-modifiable risk factors which cannot be controlled and modifiable risk factors which can be controlled.
Genetic factors are non-modifiable risk factors for incurable diseases. However, gene therapy may deal with these risk factors in the future. Modifiable risk factors include unhealthy and unhygienic behaviors, lifestyle choices, malnutrition, stressful lifestyle, environmental hazards and pollutants. These can be identified and dealt with before they can cause incurable diseases.
Knowledge of these factors can be used to educate the public and take appropriate public health measures to prevent the occurrence of these disorders.