Epidemiology for Public Health Practice Paper Example

Based on the research available and scientific projection, Alzheimer disease will be the epidemic of the twenty-first century. The data available suggests that 5% of people who are aged 65 have severe dementia, while 10% of people of the same age have moderate dementia (Eriksson, Bennet, Gatz, Dickman, & Pedersen, 2010). Further research has also established that the leading cause of death in people with Alzheimer disease is cardiovascular complications which include hypertension, stroke and heart failure.

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To clearly understand how the risk factors associated with Alzheimer disease contribute to the cardiovascular disorder, it is necessary to analyze these factors from the pie causality model (Friis & Sellers, 2014). The model indicates that a condition might be caused by more than one mechanism, the combination of various mechanisms which accounts for the onset of the cardiovascular disease has been associated with age, gender, diabetes, treated and untreated systolic blood pressure, high levels of cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (Santos et al., 2017). When some of the highlighted mechanisms come into play in an individual, they usually result in a cardiovascular complication. Example, a 75 years old male Alzheimer patient who is a smoker and has diabetes has a high likelihood of developing a heart attack or stroke. However, age alone in this example is not sufficient to cause the cardiovascular illness, but a combination of age, gender and lifestyle habit triggers the onset of the disease (Friis & Sellers, 2014).

In the analysis of a classmate's research, I feel that there should have been a brief paragraph which explains the possible treatment and therapies available to treat the Alzheimer disease. Even though no cure has been discovered yet, tremendous strides have been made in the quest to understand the condition and find a cure. However, therapies such as drug therapies have been availed to help reduce the symptoms and improve the quality of life (Santos et al., 2017).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Alzheimer disease is proving to be a significant health concern for people above the age of 65 years and a burden to their families and caregivers. The presence of the illness brings about other risk factors which eventually cause death, one of such illness brought about by the disease is the cardiovascular disorders which account for a large number of fatalities in Alzheimer patient.

References

Eriksson, U. K., Bennet, A. M., Gatz, M., Dickman, P. W., & Pedersen, N. L. (2010). Nonstroke Cardiovascular Disease and Risk of Alzheimer Disease and Dementia. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 1. doi:10.1097/wad.0b013e3181d1b99b

Friis, R., & Sellers, T. (2014). Epidemiology for public health practice. Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett.Santos, C. Y., Snyder, P. J., Wu, W., Zhang, M., Echeverria, A., & Alber, J. (2017). Pathophysiologic relationship between Alzheimer's disease, cerebrovascular disease, and cardiovascular risk: A review and synthesis. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 7, 69-87. doi:10.1016/j.dadm.2017.01.005