Home Health Care in Poway Struggles to Care for Those With Multiple Diseases

Baseball enthusiasts are known for their tendency to focus on statistics, often in painfully minute detail. Do these statistics actually help them understand the game better? That question is still up for debate, but when detailed statistics appear in the health care world, they almost always provide vitally helpful information. A recent online article by the New York Times presents some interesting statistics that directly affect home health care in Poway.

Overlapping Diseases

High blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease are all serious illnesses, but what about when a senior has two of them—or even all three? This situation is more common than it might seem, and makes it very difficult for doctors and home health care in San Diego County to keep the patient healthy. The New York Times focused on residents of long-term care facilities, but seniors living at home are no less vulnerable to these common diseases.

Prescription Problems

A primary difficulty for seniors with overlapping diseases is the range of side effects that prescription drugs carry. Drugs that address one disease often have side effects that make another disease’s symptoms worse. While there is currently no drug to directly combat Alzheimer’s disease, many medications for heart disease and blood pressure make life much harder for Alzheimer’s patients by affecting cognitive health, balance, and other basic functions.

Home Health Care in San Diego County Looks for an Alzheimer’s Cure

In studying overlapping diseases, doctors are looking squarely at Alzheimer’s disease as a possible area of breakthrough. A cure for Alzheimer’s would take it out of the equation, leaving doctors with fewer complications even when still dealing with high blood pressure/heart disease conflicts. In the meantime, caregivers and family members should be on the alert to detect harmful drug side effects in seniors with multiple diseases.

Originally posted 2013-04-23 10:30:04.