Chronic Illness and Living Healthy
Running head: CHRONIC ILLNESS AND LIVING HEALTHY
Chronic Illness and Living Healthy
Arnold Jones
Chamberlain College of Nursing
NR 351: Transition to Professional Nursing
Fall B, 2008
Chronic Illness and Living Healthy
Introduction
The 2007 United States National Center for Health Statistics reports than an illness lasting longer than three months is considered to be chronic (National Center for Health Statistics, 2007). Healthy, the adjective form of the word health, is defined as a “…flourishing condition.” (Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 2009). Coronary heart disease (CHD) affects 80.7 million Americans and accounts for, 36.3% of all deaths in the United States. Of those with CHD, 770,000 carry the often burdensome diagnosis of coronary heart disease (CHD). Burdensome as, “…CHD caused one of every five deaths in the United States in 2004…” (AHA, 2008). Yet with this chronic illness, all is not hopeless, as the modifiable risk factors of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, tobacco use, and physical inactivity are controllable, and can afford one with CAD a relative degree of health (Framingham Heart Study, 2009).
Libby, Bonow, Mann, and Zipes delineate the modifiable CHD risk factors into three classes. Class I, risk factors that have an obvious causal relationship to the development of CHD are smoking, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. Class II risk factors are those that have strong causal relationship, and class III are risk factors currently being investigated (Libby, Bonow, Mann, & Zipes, 2007). This writing will examine the class I risk factors as they relate to chronic illness and modifications that can result in living healthy.
Coronary Heart Disease
As Americans began to shift from a predominantly agrarian society to an urban society, the death rates from CHD began to increase. From 1900 to 1955, the death rate from CHD increased from 5.5/100,000 population to 8.5/100,000 population, a rise of
Chronic Illness and Living Healthy
Arnold Jones
Chamberlain College of Nursing
NR 351: Transition to Professional Nursing
Fall B, 2008
Chronic Illness and Living Healthy
Introduction
The 2007 United States National Center for Health Statistics reports than an illness lasting longer than three months is considered to be chronic (National Center for Health Statistics, 2007). Healthy, the adjective form of the word health, is defined as a “…flourishing condition.” (Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 2009). Coronary heart disease (CHD) affects 80.7 million Americans and accounts for, 36.3% of all deaths in the United States. Of those with CHD, 770,000 carry the often burdensome diagnosis of coronary heart disease (CHD). Burdensome as, “…CHD caused one of every five deaths in the United States in 2004…” (AHA, 2008). Yet with this chronic illness, all is not hopeless, as the modifiable risk factors of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, tobacco use, and physical inactivity are controllable, and can afford one with CAD a relative degree of health (Framingham Heart Study, 2009).
Libby, Bonow, Mann, and Zipes delineate the modifiable CHD risk factors into three classes. Class I, risk factors that have an obvious causal relationship to the development of CHD are smoking, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. Class II risk factors are those that have strong causal relationship, and class III are risk factors currently being investigated (Libby, Bonow, Mann, & Zipes, 2007). This writing will examine the class I risk factors as they relate to chronic illness and modifications that can result in living healthy.
Coronary Heart Disease
As Americans began to shift from a predominantly agrarian society to an urban society, the death rates from CHD began to increase. From 1900 to 1955, the death rate from CHD increased from 5.5/100,000 population to 8.5/100,000 population, a rise of
References: A Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence: a US Public Health Service Report. (2000) Journal of the American Medical Association, 283(24),3244-3254. American Heart Association & American Stroke Association (2008) Heart disease and stroke statistics, 2008 update. Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://americanheart.org Blood Pressure (2009) Borio, G. (2009) The tobacco timeline. Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://www.tobacco.org/History/Tobacco_History.html. Framingham Heart Study, History of the Framingham Heart Study and Framingham heart Study Bibliography. (2009) Retrieved February 14, 2009, from http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/about/milestones.html. Libby, P., Bonow, R., Mann, D., & Zipes, P. (Eds.) (2007) Braunwald 's heart disease: A textbook of cardiovascular medicine, (8th ed.). Philadelphia: Saunders Elseiver Lu, J Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2009) Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/?refr=U_mwol_top. National Center for Health Statistics (2007) Health, United States, 2007 with chartbook on trends in the health of Americans. Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus07.pdf. National Institute of Health (2002) The seventh report of the joint national committee on prevention, detection, evaluation, and treatment of high blood pressure. RetrievedFebruary 14, 2009 from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/index.htm. Rhailly, C., & Farwell, W, (2007) Prevalence of smoking in the united states: A focus on age, sex, ethnicity, and geographic patterns. Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports, 1,379-383. WebMD (2009) How can you lower your cholesterol levels. Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://webmd.com/cholesterol-management/how-you-can-lower-your-levels. Zhu, B. & Parmley, W. (1995) Hemodynamic and vascular effects of active and passive smoking. American Heart Journal, 130,1270-1275.