Currency of Wellness ^TM

Do I know if I am recovering or not. In most conditions, it is easy to assume that one would be aware if one is on the way to recovery and getting better. When you next meet the doctor, you may be asked about how you are feeling and the doctor may recommend some tests to make sure. This assurance of improvement is even more critical in conditions that need long treatment cycles. It ensures that the patient stays motivated to follow the medication and does not drop -off the treatment schedule. And recovery may mean a different set of things for each one of us based on what aspects of our life got impacted by us being unwell. While working with TB patients we realized that ‘getting better’ had very different expressions for Shyam, an auto driver who had to sit for long hours while driving the auto or Shanta who ironed clothes with her husband at a residential society, standing most of the day or Baldev who stayed with his son’s family and was just eager to resume contributing to everyday chores of the household. This insight led us to define the Currency of Wellness which captures ‘what’ it means for the patient and immediate caregivers to be well, recovering from the specific health condition and creates a larger set of patient-reported outcomes. In our work in TB, this helped define aspects of recovery like being able to climb stairs (for Baldev), being able to hold a conversation without coughing and sit for long hours without back pain (for Shyam), being able to take a walk without panting and stand for longer durations (for Shanta). The usual signs of recovery in TB that are monitored by doctors are absence of cough, weight gain and absence of fever.

We are actively working on building more evidence for Bharat's Currency of Wellness across different conditions. If this area interests you, we would love to hear from you and work together towards building this repository.