What is Chronic Illness?
Since I began studying Chronic Disease Management, I have learned that “chronic disease” is an umbrella term and it’s definition varies widely. In addition to the variation of diseases that are included under the umbrella, the time a condition or disease must be present for to be referred to as chronic varies depending on who you ask.
Long-standing functional disabilities, such as developmental disorders and visual impairment, are not considered to be chronic diseases under the current definition.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) define heart disease, stroke, cancer, type II diabetes, obesity, and arthritis as chronic.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a more extensive list of conditions which inlcudes Alzheimer’s disease, depression, and HIV, along with 16 other conditions.
The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics defines chronic illness as disease that cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, or that do not resolve on their own.
Wikipedia describes chronic illness as long-lasting effects or a disease that persists for 3 months or more.
Some academic researchers classify an illness as “chronic” if the condition lasts a year or more and requires ongoing medical attention and/or limits activities of daily living.
While some countries include conditions such as mental illness and oral disease as chronic disease, the United States does not.
Finally, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that chronic disease cannot be passed from person to person and consists of four main groups: cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes.
As you can imagine, these inconsistencies cause a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Additionally, this non-uniform definition of chronic illness only harms society as well as individuals by increasing overall disease burden and reducing accessibility to services.
Not only does it cause confusion on paper, but it causes very real implications for those living with chronic conditions.
Merriam Webster defines chronic as something that is “continuing or occurring again and again fro a long time”.
Perhaps if we used this simplified definition, it would include many more conditions within the umbrella in hopes of increasing awareness, sharing knowledge, providing advocacy, and creating a larger community of individuals with shared experiences.
Most importantly, we could all work together toward improving our health and our quality of life.
One thing I know for certain:
Until we can agree on inclusive and universal language for what “chronic illness” means, those of us who do not fall within the protection of the umbrella will continue to be left out in the storm.
