Topic C Flashcards
What do muscle cells need to work?
Food and oxygen
What is cononary heart disease?
Coronary heart disease is the term that describes what happens when the blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries.
What causes the blockages, stopping blood?
Over time, the walls of your arteries can become furred up with fatty deposits, lining the artery lumen, for a number if reasons. This process is known as atheroscieriosois and the fatty deposits are called atheroma.
Explain the symptom called Angina in coronary heart disease
If coronary arteries become particularly blocked, it can cause chest pain called angina.
This can be a mild, uncomfortable feeling similar to indigestion. However, a severe angina attack can cause a painful feeling of heaviness or tightness, usually in the centre of the chest, which can spread to the arms, neck, jaw, back or stomach.
How is angina triggered?
Angina is often triggered by physical activity or stressful situations. Symptoms usually pass in less than 10 minutes, and can be relieved by resting or using a nitrate tablet or spray.
What are the other possible symptoms of cardiovascular disease?
Heart palpitations, this is where you can feel your heart racing, pounding in your ears, sometimes an irregular beat.
People can sometimes feel breathless as they try and get more oxygen in the lungs to feed the cells not getting any.
Some people might not get any symptoms
What are possible biological causes by having cardiovascular disease?
- less flexible artery walls
- fatty deposits build up which
- increases blood pressure
- high blood pressure creates a harder pump action to keep the blood flowing
- diabetes inherited from DNA
- high blood pressure (hypertension)
What are some lifestyle factors which could cause cardiovascular disease?
- Unbalanced diet
- Obesity
- Unhealthy BMI calculation
- Smoking
- Limited exercise
- Having a sit down job
What medication can be used to help someone with cardiovascular disease?
- Medicines to thin the blood, preventing clotting and to make it less sticky
- Medicines to lower blood pressure eg. Beta blockers]
- Medicines to lower blood cholesterol levels eg. Statins
- Oxygen therapy may be required in more serious cases and the use of a wheelchair
What happens to our brain function as we start to age?
As we age the brain function begins to decline as cells are not replaced and the blood supply to the brain is not as good for the same reason as cardiovascular atherosclerosis
What are some risk increases with age?
- strokes
- under-active thyroid gland, biochemical in the body
- alzheimer’s, decline in brain tissue and health
- vascular dementia, decline in brain tissue and health
- trapped nerve in spine or Sciatica
- spondylosis (spinal curve and cartilage degenerates)
- depression, chemical imbalance or affects of bereavement
- anxiety, chemical imbalance of affects of loss/confusion
How is blood flow to the brain effected with age?
Artery walls harden with age, which means cells don’t get the required amounts of oxygen and nutrients to be healthy, resulting in cells dying off.
Describe the degeneration of the nervous system
Impulses from the nervous system become slower and the cell repair process occurs more slowly and incompletely making older people more vulnerable to injury or disease. Decrease sensation, slower reflexes and a tendency to be clumsy can be a result of the degeneration of nerve tissue.
What is cataracts?
Cataracts occur when changes in the lens of the eye cause it to become less transparent (clear). Which results in cloudy or misty vision
What happens during cataracts?
The lens is the crystalline structure that sits just behind your pupil. When light enters your eye, it passes through the cornea and the lens, which focuses it on the light sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eye ( the retina)
