Effects of Disease on the Health Care Industry: Cardiovascular Health Evelyn Barnum

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)
Current treatments are focusing on improving the central cardiopulmonary abnormalities, such as decreased ejection fraction and increased capillary wedge pressure. These are interventions aimed at improving the peripheral changes that occur with congestive heart failure. Exercise is a treatment modality that has been shown to positively help many of these peripheral changes. Exercise also reduces the symptoms of exertion fatigue, improves the quality of life, and increases survival rates. Medicines to reduce the fluid are still the first line of treatment. Such medicines as Bumex, Lasix and other water reducing medicines assist with the fluid that occurs in the lungs and in the legs forming peripheral edema. Nitro tablets are also another treatment used for chest pain in this related illness. Mostly because the fluid buildup causes lack of oxygen and then crates angina giving cause to chest pains. (Yamani & Massie ,2010)

There are several medicines that lower your risk of a heart attack. These
include: Aspirin or other antiplatelet medicines to help prevent blood clots. An ACE inhibitor or a beta-blocker to help lower blood pressure and reduce the workload on your heart. A statin to help lower cholesterol.

To manage symptoms, you might take an angina medicine, such as nitroglycerin. Procedures
If your angina symptoms get worse even though you are taking medicines, you may think about having a procedure to improve blood flow to your heart. These include angioplasty with or without stenting and bypass surgery. They are done when the coronary arteries are severely narrowed or blocked. Palliative care

If your coronary artery disease gets worse, you may want to think about palliative care. Palliative care focuses on improving your quality of life—not just in your body, but also in your mind and spirit. It may help you manage symptoms or side effects from treatment. (WEBMD, 2015)

Patients with CHF not only need pharmaceutical management by physicians and nurses, but they also require support to enhance their self-care behaviors and non-pharmaceutical management. (True) Implementing personalized, supportive-educational programs based on no pharmacological management strategies might be a useful tool to develop, maintain, and change self-care behaviors. (True) Diet controls and behaviors have a huge impact on CHF. (True)

A number of risk factors, such as ischemic heart disease, hypertension, smoking, obesity, and diabetes, among others, have been identified that both predict the incidence of CHF as well as its severity. (True) (Bui, Horwich, & Fonarow, 2011)

Coronary artery disease is caused by hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis. This means that fatty deposits called plaque build up inside the arteries. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood throughout your body. Only men get CAD. (Myth)

CAD is s life threatening disease. (True)
CAD can be prevented with the right treatments and lifestyle. (True)

(WEBMD, 2015)

Congestive Heart failure (CHF) is a major public health issue, with a prevalence of over 5.8 million in the USA, and over 23 million worldwide, and rising. The lifetime risk of developing CHF is one in five. Although promising evidence shows that the age-adjusted incidence of CHF may have plateaued, CHF still carries substantial morbidity and mortality, with 5-year mortality that rival those of many cancers. CHF represents a considerable burden to the health-care system, responsible for costs of more than $39 billion annually in the USA alone, and high rates of hospitalizations, readmissions, and outpatient visits.

Heart failure is a major health problem in with increased prevalence and incidence in the aging population. Hospitalizations from heart failure increased 159% over the past decade despite the advances in the treatment of the disease.

Expensive procedures like ICDs and pacemakers, with average costs of 30 to 40 thousand dollars per device, have failed to result in meaningful changes in the course of the disease.  At this point we need to to change strategies toward increasing prevention rather than spending more money in expensive and less effective treatments. Controlling risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity will prevent and delay CHF and cardiovascular diseases.

(American Heart Association, 2013)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease and stroke are the leading cause of death in every ethnic group studied—Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American—in the United States. According to the American Heart Association, the cardiovascular disease death rate among African Americans is 34 percent higher than for the overall U.S. population. According to the Women’s Heart Foundation, African American women ages 55 to 64 are twice as likely as caucasian women to have a heart attack and 35 percent more likely to suffer from coronary artery disease. (American Heart Association, 2013)

References

American Heart Association, 2013. Heart Disease and Stroke Facts, 2013 Update. Dallas, Texas

Beltrame J, Dreyer R, and Tavella R, (2012). Epidemiology of Coronary Artery Disease, Coronary Artery Disease – Current Concepts in Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, Diagnostics and Treatment, Retrieved from:http://www.intechopen.com/books/coronary-artery-disease-current-concepts-in-epidemiology-pathophysiologydiagnostics-and-treatment/epidemiology-of-coronary-artery-disease

Bui A, Horwich T, & Fonarow G, 2011, Nature Reviews Cardiology 8, 30-41 (January 2011) Retrieved from
http://www.nature.com/nrcardio/journal/v8/n1/full/nrcardio.2010.165.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014, The Burden of Heart Disease and Stroke in the United States: State and National Data, 1999. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004.

WEBMD, 2015, Coronary Artery Disease – Treatment Overview Retrieved from
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/tc/coronary-
artery-disease-treatment-overview

Yamani M. and Massie B.M.,2010,, Congestive heart failure: insights from epidemiology, implications
for treatment. Mayo Clin Proc 68, pp. 1214–1218.