Implication of Adoption for future generations

Generational impacts of adoption – Harlow’s Monkey

Blogger Harlow’s Monkey discusses her being adopted, not knowing her biological family medical history and how that has affected her own daughter.

Sometimes, I think my unknown medical history is the most damaging feature of being adopted.

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But of even greater concern is that I don’t know if I’m at risk for cardiac problems, diabetes, cancer, or mental health disorders.

This means also, that my children will also be unable to fill out the [√] on standard medical history forms, as we recently experienced when my kids had their yearly checkups.

Again, not knowing doesn’t just affect me. It also affects my children.

I kind of know what she means, though from the perspective of the child of an adoptee rather than as an adoptee myself. While I know at least some information about my mum’s family’s medical history, I know nothing about the medical history of my dad’s biological family. This especially becomes a problem when you start thinking about illnesses that can be hereditary – for example Crohn’s Disease, which my dad suffers from. He didn’t show symptoms of having it until he was well into his forties and without a family medical history to look at, I have no way of knowing whether or not I have a similar risk of finding myself suffering from the same problem. As far as I know, with Crohn’s Disease, there is no certainty that the children of a sufferer will also find themselves also afflicted (not a great word to use, but I can’t think of a better term) but there is a higher risk of them suffering from Crohn’s Disease.

If I knew more about my family medical history, then there might be some clues as to whether I have this to look forward to in twenty years time or if I can relax a bit and not worry quite so much. I guess it would be a bit easier for my dad to find out about his biological family and their medical history being adopted within a country rather than internationally like Harlow’s Monkey.

Telephone bracelet for Alzheimer’s sufferers

A telephone bracelet has been developed by Orange and Medical Mobile for Alzheimer’s sufferers in France. It seems to be basically a watch containing GPS and mobile phone technology that keeps track of the patient and alerts the relevant people when they wander out of where they’re supposed to be – a bit similar to a system implemented in a nursing home that I read about except this would allow the patient out of a nursing home and down to a local shop perhaps rather than just confining them to the home. Plus there’s the added bonus of being able to talk to the person through the bracelet rather than having to peg it to wherever they are.

This is a really cool idea and could probably be used not just for Alzheimer’s patients, but for any vunerable person who might get confused and disoriented when out and about.

Via Popgadget