CASE STUDY ASSESSMENT

Case Study Assessment

Case Study Assessment

Section 1

High blood pressure (hypertension) is major cardiovascular risk factor, whose high prevalence and the possibility of being modified by therapeutic intervention, makes it a health issue of great interest. Along with hyperlipidemia and smoking, it is one of the three major risk factors contributing to cardiovascular disease. Of these, hypertension is the most powerful predictor of life expectancy after accounting for age and family history of each individual.

The systolic hypertensions is said to be a kind of a systolic blood pressure (SBP) that is equal to or greater than 140 mmHg, whereas having diastolic blood pressure (DBP) lower to the 90 mmHg mark. There is a strong association between systolic hypertension and onset of target organ damage in the elderly in relation to the diastolic.

Isolated systolic hypertension is caused by a progressive decrease of the elasticity of the arteries, which is observed in more elderly patients. Evidence from different studies show that systolic hypertension is a powerful predictor of mortality from all sources: coronary heart disease and stroke in older populations. This observation extends to the entire range of blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure included (Smulyan, Safar, 2000, 233-237).

Observational studies have shown that there is a causal link between systolic hypertension and vascular disease emergence and the Framingham study and the analysis of data from 20 years of monitoring of subjects showed that the incidence of coronary heart disease had a close link with systolic hypertension, which was the best forecast data for atherothrombotic stroke and had better correlation with the development of congestive heart failure and left ventricular hypertrophy than diastolic.

In modern societies, systolic pressure increases progressively with age, which can occur until the eighth or ninth decade of life, while the diastolic tends to remain constant or decrease after the fifth to sixth decades. This explains that systolic hypertension constitutes one of the most common forms of hypertension from 60 years of age. The systolic hypertension reaches a particular relevance in the elderly. Cardiovascular risk factor (CVRF) is more relevant in this age group in both sexes. The increased risk for cardiovascular events associated with hypertension increases considerably when the patient also has other risk factors such as smoking, high serum cholesterol and diabetes, so that the same blood pressure in different subjects have different implications depending on the presence of other associated factors. Following are some of the symptoms, through which the presence of systolic hypertension in an individual can be diagnosed:

Blood pressure

If the blood pressure at rest at multiple measurements exceeds a value of 140/90 mm / Hg, it is called high blood pressure or hypertension. The first number stands for the systolic blood pressure, which is always called by the doctor first. The second value is the diastolic blood pressure.

Optimal is a blood pressure of 120/80 mm / Hg. The threshold and treatment targets are lower, if an illness, such as coronary heart disease or diabetes mellitus is present.

One speaks of mild hypertension with values ??between 140/90 mm / ...