Health-Related Quality of Life

The Greeks called it, “eudemonia,” — loosely translated as happiness or welfare, or more literally, “good spirits.” In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considered eudemonia the greatest good for humanity. This statement, in and of itself, possesses no surprise. Who doesn’t want happiness or general wellbeing?

The larger question surrounds the process of getting to eudemonia. Does it require relentless devotion to the pursuit? Unfortunately as the hedonist paradox suggests, a single-minded approach to happiness might not work. Whenever we focus on pleasure, or happiness at the expense of other pursuits, it seems we never really find happiness.

Even more, defining what makes a high quality of life is difficult; it means different things to different people. Health is a part of quality of life, but so is your work, housing situation, relational status, cultural values, and spirituality.

The pursuit of happiness has been a question batted around philosophical circles for centuries and their definitions span a wide spectrum, but do these well-known issues mean we have no hope in understanding wellbeing, happiness, and the overall quality of life?

By no means!

Understanding Quality of Life

In the context of health, quality of life does indeed have some determining factors.

Individually, health related quality of life includes physical and mental health perceptions and their correlates such as health risks and conditions, functional status, social support, and socioeconomic status. It is not necessarily whether you have this or that, but how you feel and what you believe about these issues.

Communally, health related quality of life contains resources, conditions, policies, and practices that influence a population’s health perceptions and functional status.

Even though these individual and community perceptions provide much description around quality of life, we believe the central point around quality of life is function. As we have mentioned before, the World Health Organization asserts that quality of life has less to do with diminishing pain than it has to do with the ability to participate in life with others and to perform the tasks that are important to you.

Focusing on Function

Therefore, our central tenet is that the more we focus on what is important to our patients — the tasks that trouble them and the things they once enjoyed that they now experience limitations — the higher the health-related quality of life will be when they can once again perform them at a high level.

To illustrate, look at this diagram: the red wedge reflects the growing health-related quality of life as we move outward from the traditional model of treating just the medical condition, to addressing the task and participation restrictions.

In line with the conclusions of the World Health Organization, the thesis behind our work suggests the more we direct our attention to bringing functional ability back to the lives our patients, the higher the quality of life.

Ever since Aristotle, we have been pursuing the question of eudemonia. What makes us happy? How can we live the good life? How should we define well-being and human flourishing?

These philosophical inquiries are important and have value in the human pursuit of knowledge, but don’t let the debate fool you into thinking there’s nothing to be done about improving your quality of life and the quality of life for those around you. The ability to participate in life with others and to perform daily tasks is a central component to a high quality of life. If you are interested in improving your quality of life by improving your ability to move, let us know! We will gladly help you get on track!