THE HEALTHY AGING CONVERSATION OFTEN LEAVES OUT PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC CONDITIONS

Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

• HEALTH’s new survey found that people living with chronic conditions prioritize quality of life, not just symptom management.
• Many respondents said they don’t feel the medical community sees them as whole people.
• Many people living with chronic conditions also reported struggling to maintain healthy habits.

This article is part of HEALTH’s Longevity Insights Report.

Conversations about healthy aging often focus on disease prevention, but what does aging well look like for the millions of Americans already living with a chronic condition?

HEALTH’s new survey shows quality of life is a top priority for this population—yet many respondents feel the medical community reduces them to their symptoms instead of seeing them as whole people.

People Want More Than Better Health Metrics

When it comes to aging well, managing symptoms appears to be only part of the equation for people living with chronic conditions. 

In HEALTH’s survey of 722 people living with conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and depression, most respondents said “doing well” means having their condition under control, but 96% also believed being able to live their day-to-day lives was just as important as improving their symptoms. Additionally, 94% said addressing their condition involves improving their lifestyle, not just their symptoms or health metrics. 

When asked to choose their primary motivation, 64% said they wanted to live longer and feel younger, compared with 36% who said managing their chronic condition and improving their symptoms or health metrics was their top priority.

As one 71-year-old female respondent put it: “Life needs to be enjoyable and engaging.”

That sentiment is something Amy Mechley, MD, DipABLM, a board-certified family and lifestyle medicine physician, said she hears firsthand from her patients. “When we ask patients what matters most, they rarely say, ‘I want my A1c to be 6.8.’ They say, ‘I want enough energy to enjoy my life,” she said. “Those are the outcomes we should be designing healthcare to support.”

“Clinical outcomes matter, but they’re only part of the picture” for these patients, agreed Tiffany Lester, MD, an autoimmune expert and Women’s Health Director at Function Health.

The Problem With Being Defined by a Diagnosis

Yet what many people with chronic conditions say they want—to enjoy day-to-day lives—appears to be at odds with how they feel they’re viewed by the medical community. In HEALTH’s survey, 77% of participants said they feel that doctors often see only their symptoms, not the whole person, while 86% say the same about pharmaceutical companies.

“I don’t just want to get information that focuses on just [my conditions],” said one respondent with sleep apnea and high cholesterol. “I want to know more about overall health, which in the long run will help those conditions as well.”

The disconnect extends beyond the medical community, Lester said. People with chronic conditions can also feel overlooked by wellness culture, where conversations about aging well often assume people have the health, support, and circumstances to follow standard advice.

“There’s a subtle shame built into wellness culture, the idea that if you just improve your sleep, your stress, gut, nutrition, etc., you’ll avoid disease altogether,” she said. “For many people living with chronic conditions, that’s just not realistic.”

Given these challenges, following wellness advice may feel difficult. In the survey, 67% of respondents said they struggle to consistently maintain healthy habits due to pain, fatigue, physical limitations, mental health challenges, cost, and a lack of support.

What Whole-Person Support Could Look Like

Nearly 90% of respondents said they want wellness tools that focus on the whole person, not just their symptoms—but what does holistic support look like in practice?

Mechley and Lester said it could involve an integrated healthcare team, technology that helps both patients and doctors track health over time, and continuous, personalized care from doctors beyond quick office visits.

“Health care systems can better support the whole person living with chronic disease by becoming trustworthy partners in health, by ensuring that physicians and health care teams ask about, listen, and learn about what matters most,” said Tracy Lippard, MD, a geriatrician at Kaiser Permanente in Colorado.

“The future of medicine is not choosing between treating disease and promoting wellness,” Mechley added. “It is integrating both.”

Read the original article on Health

2026-08-04T12:49:37Z