Minerva Med. 1979 Sep; 70(36): 2515-44.

[Preventive medicine in adults. Fundamentals and prospects]

Cavalieri U.

The Author puts in evidence the need of a real development of the Medical Science, so to give the basis for a program of preventive medicine of the adult, that is prevention of degenerative pathology. A new way of thinking about this pathology starts from its relation with the aging process. This "interpretative way" may often be much more usefull than the mere diagnostic definition (as in the traditional medicine for the infectious disease) with its consequences of therapeutic activism and of a "by any way gained" normalization of biological parameters. Under this point of view one can look at the various aspects of the prevention. So the Author claims for a real evaluation of the risk factors and quite important, of the protective factors. These protective factors are probably of big value for preventive medical practice, as important as the health education. Actually people's health must be driven and saved much more than restored, a "Utopia" in the field of degenerative and senile pathology.