Aging-associated Medical Affections

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If you're still not over 50 years old, you're probably not thinking too much about the health changes of aging. Of course, there are a lot of things you can do in order to prevent certain diseases from taking over your body, but sometimes we develop some medical affections just because we're getting older. There are a few classes of health issues that affect today’s seniors. Some of them are chronical issues and some physical. Here are a few diseases that affect people as they're starting to get older.

Obesity

Obesity is an important senior health risk factor, especially for heart diseases. About three-fourths of adults aged 60 and older are overweight or obese. Older people that suffer from obesity can also develop other affections, because obesity is related to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure and many others. Women, especially the ones in menopause, usually start accumulate fat around the waist and hips, and men get the gut.

Alzheimer's Disease

One in three seniors dies with Alzheimer's or another dementia. This disease is the most common cause of dementia and it represents brain damage and the death of cells that affect brain function and cognitive ability. This type of disease usually begins with minor memory loss and confusion, but later progresses to more severe cognitive and physical impairment. Having a member in your family that deals with Alzheimer's or any other type of dementia can be tough. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways that help you handle taking care of a person affected by dementia, like aged care packages.

Heart Disease

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, especially for seniors over age 65. The numbers are really scary, given the fact that heart disease affects 37 percent of men and 26 percent of women 65 and older, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics. This type of disease refers to a variety of disorders like: pericarditis, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy or hypertension. Good news is that you can reduce the risk of being affected by a heart disease by as much as 80 percent, if you live a healthy lifestyle.

Vision and Hearing Loss

Over 119 million people aged 40 and older are affected by age-related eye diseases like: macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy or glaucoma. This kind of situation can be kept under control if we take regular eye exams, or change some aspects of our lifestyle. If you ever thought of trying to quit smoking, now might the perfect time to do it, because smokers are at higher risk for macular degeneration.

Recent studies show that people affected by hearing loss are also often affected by depression, which is another medical affection associated with aging. The obvious solution to this problem is using a hearing aid, but unfortunately, only one out of four people are able to use this device. The majority of people suffering from hearing loss are age 65 or older, but 29 percent of them can be as young as 45 years old.

Aging itself can't be considered a disease, but it's a sure thing that it brings complications. There are a lot of research projects developing in the world today, all of them happening in order to determine the effect of age on the human body. Some of them are inevitable results of getting older, but part of them can be prevented by taking care of what