Fw: Ref.: (LML) Cell phone Reminder ' Nudge ' to prevent leprosy related disability

 

Leprosy Mailing List – August 15,  2021

 

Ref.:  (LML) Cell phone Reminder ' Nudge ' to prevent leprosy related disability

From:  Ajit P, Maharashtra, India

 

Respected Pieter,

 

Policymakers often resort to rules, mandates, regulations etc. to ensure a certain type of public  behaviour. Typically this is for the greater good of the people e.g. banning alcohol, tobacco etc. 

 

At the other extreme, is the leave alone policy, people know what is best for them and need not be told.

 

In between these two approaches lie  ' nudges ' e.g. health warning symbols on cigarette packages, reminders etc. That is instead of simply banning cigarettes (rules - which often are impractical to enforce) or leave alone policy (wrong when we know tobacco causes cancer), we use health warnings to make the dangers of cigarette smoking salient ( apparent ) to people to modify behaviour. 

 

Prof Richard Thaler, Nobel laureate, and a leading behavioural economist has mentioned these in detail in a book: Nudge: The Final Edition. 

 

Reminders are also  ' nudges '.

 

Reminders to prevent leprosy related foot ulcers .

 

It is imperative, that at the time of diagnosis of leprosy itself, we should tell patients to set up reminders in their cell phones for checking (under a bright tube light) if there are injuries on their feet.

 

We can explain that since leprosy affects nerves, sensations are impaired and hence you do not feel pain from minor injuries which over time enlarge. It is important to tell the patients that this nerve impairment often persists even after successful treatment. 

 

My advice is to make the patient set up a reminder in the cell phone right in front of us. 

 

Patients often cannot understand the importance of this simple intervention and hence it is necessary to stress this again  in follow up visits .

 

 

Dr Ajit

 

LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder

LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/

Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com

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