How to compile your family medical history
16 12 07 - 00:00
Family gatherings are an ideal time to catch up on family news and information. They also provide a good opportunity to learn about your family's health history. Mapping your family medical history can help you identify some health risks you may face in the years ahead and help you take measures to avoid or plan for them.
What is a family medical history?
A family medical history or medical family tree is a record of illnesses among family members. It resembles the family tree you might have drawn in school, with the addition of health information. A medical family tree visually depicts the relationships between each member of your family. Depending on how much information you're able to obtain for each relative, your medical family tree can be very detailed and include health issues each family member faced.
How is a family medical history used?
Compiling a family medical history can help you and your doctor spot patterns of specific conditions and diseases among family members. Your doctor and other health care professionals can use your family's medical history — sometimes called a pedigree — for a number of things, including:
Diagnosing a medical condition
Determining whether you may benefit from preventive measures to lower your risk of a specific disease
Deciding what medical tests to run
Identifying other members of your family who are at risk of developing certain diseases
Calculating your risk of certain diseases
Calculating your risk of passing certain conditions to your children
What can't your family medical history tell you?
A family medical history doesn't help everyone looking for answers about hereditary health concerns. For instance, it:
Doesn't apply to people who are adopted. Family medical histories only work for blood relatives. If you are adopted and don't know your biological parents, your family's medical history won't tell you about your risk of inherited diseases.
Can't predict your future. Whether you'll actually end up with an inherited condition depends on your health habits, such as diet and exercise. Knowing now that you're at risk of certain diseases can motivate you to change any unhealthy behaviors.
Provides limited insight into small families. If you have few brothers, sisters and cousins, it will be more difficult to identify health patterns in your family.
Someday it may be possible to use genetic testing to predict all of the diseases for which you're at risk. Until that time, your family's medical history may provide the best look into your possible future.
How do you gather information about your family's medical history?
Interview your relatives in person or on the phone, or send them a survey. See if you can meet with them at your next family reunion to interview them personally. Talking with your relatives can help you renew or strengthen relationships as well as gain valuable knowledge.
Come up with questions to ask your relatives. Your survey should include questions about medical conditions your relatives have and their health habits, such as smoking, diet and exercise.
Your questions might include:
Can you provide significant dates, such as birth dates and approximate dates when diseases were diagnosed?
What major diseases has the family experienced? Examples are heart disease, stroke, cancer, depression, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, obesity, blindness and deafness. At what age were these diseases or conditions diagnosed? Was treatment successful?
Have family members had a tendency toward other conditions, such as allergies, asthma, migraines or frequent colds?
Has infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths or infant deaths taken place in the family? If so, what was the cause?
Are you aware of birth defects, learning disabilities or mental retardation in the family health history?
What is the family's dominant racial and ethnic background? Some diseases are more common among members of certain races and ethnicities.
Can you think of any other information that may be relevant to the family medical history?
Other sources of information might include death certificates, which are available through your state health department, and family records, which might include letters, census records or obituaries.
Gather information on as many generations of relatives as you can, including your parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, half brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren. If you're married and have children, include your spouse's family history as well.
Gather as much accurate information as you can. If you can't remember what caused a family member's death, don't guess. Incorrect information will give you incorrect results. Do your best to collect solid information about your closest relatives — parents, children, sisters and brothers.
What if a relative doesn't want to share personal information?
You might find that some relatives prefer to keep some health information private. Relatives may not want to talk about an uncle's alcoholism, a niece's treatment for mental illness, a nephew's dyslexia or a grandmother's Alzheimer's disease. Solving this problem calls for tact and compassion.
Consider these strategies to get family members to open up and share personal information:
Explain your purpose. Emphasize that your purpose is to create a record that will help you determine whether you and your relatives have a family history of certain diseases or health conditions. Offer to make the medical history available to other family members so that they can share the information with their doctors.
Provide several ways to answer questions. Some people may be more willing to share health information in a face-to-face meeting. Others may prefer answering your questions by mail or e-mail.
Word questions carefully. Don't start with personal questions. Begin your interview by asking questions about the whole family and then let your relative volunteer his or her personal health information.
Be a good listener. As your relatives talk about their health problems, let them speak without interruption. Listen without judgment or comment.
Respect privacy. As you collect information about your relatives, respect their right to confidentiality. Some people may not want to share any health information with you. Or they may not want this information revealed to anyone other than you and your doctor.
Share your family medical history with your doctor
Take your completed medical history with you to your next doctor's appointment. Your doctor can help you analyze disease patterns throughout your family and can talk with you about your risk of developing certain diseases. If you're curious about genetic testing, your doctor can discuss this with you and determine whether genetic testing is right for you.
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