Answer 4 for NRS 455 Identify a cardiac or respiratory dysfunction and its cause
Coronary heart disease is the selected cardiovascular condition. The buildup of plaques in the arteriole walls characterizes coronary artery disease. Coronary artery disease increases the risk of other cardiovascular conditions such as heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke. Several prevention strategies can be adopted for coronary artery disease. One of them is ensuring treatment adherence. Treatment adherence prevents the risk of adverse outcomes in coronary artery disease. Often, patients with coronary artery disease are prescribed drugs such as anti-hypertensive medications, statins, and blood thinners among others (Jia et al., 2020). Treatment adherence prevents the progression of coronary artery disease and complications development, which would contribute to poor prognosis in the disease.
The other preventive strategy is maintaining active physical activity. Patients should be encouraged to engage in moderate physical activity to promote cardiovascular health and healthy weight loss. Patients should also adopt healthy diets. This includes reducing dietary intake of sodium and increasing the intake of high-fiber, low-fat diets. Patients should also maintain a healthy weight for the prevention of coronary artery disease (Lu et al., 2020). Unhealthy weight is a risk factor for other comorbidities such as diabetes.
Patients should also quit smoking and alcohol abuse or use. Smoking accelerates the development of atherosclerotic plaques. Tobacco chemicals also induce inflammatory processes that worsen atherosclerosis and the development of pulmonary problems such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Alcohol abuse among patients with coronary artery disease increases the risk of cardiovascular complications such as heart attacks. Patients should also be educated on the importance of ensuring self-management of hypertension and other conditions, including diabetes (Jankowski et al., 2020). Self-management of hypertension and diabetes requires patients to be proactively involved in strategies such as treatment adherence, and lifestyle and behavioral modification for optimum outcomes.
References
Jankowski, P., Kosior, D. A., Sowa, P., Szóstak-Janiak, K., Kozieł, P., Krzykwa, A., Sawicka, E., Haberka, M., Setny, M., Kamiński, K., Gąsior, Z., Kubica, A., Bacquer, D. D., Backer, G. D., Kotseva, K., Wood, D., Pająk, A., & Czarnecka, D. (2020). Secondary prevention of coronary artery disease in Poland. Results from the POLASPIRE survey. Cardiology Journal, 27(5), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.5603/CJ.a2020.0072
Jia, S., Liu, Y., & Yuan, J. (2020). Evidence in Guidelines for Treatment of Coronary Artery Disease. In M. Wang (Ed.), Coronary Artery Disease: Therapeutics and Drug Discovery (pp. 37–73). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2517-9_2
Lu, M., Xia, H., Ma, J., Lin, Y., Zhang, X., Shen, Y., & Hravnak, M. (2020). Relationship between adherence to secondary prevention and health literacy, self-efficacy and disease knowledge among patients with coronary artery disease in China. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 19(3), 230–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474515119880059
