Physiologic Changes In Elderly

Aged population i.e. population of elderly has been increasing around the world and so is the prevalence of many chronic illnesses including heart disease. As compared to the young people, the heart disease in elderly is difficult to manage due to various reasons and to care elderly patients with cardiac conditions has various significant changes from the care of younger patients with the same diagnoses (Jackson & Wenger, 2011). As a person become older, his or her body cells and organs also starts to get old as per wear and tear theory. Along with the structural changes, many physiologic changes occur within the body including vital organs. Heart and blood vessels also undergo various changes. According to Young (n.d.), as person grows older many heart undergo many physiologic changes that includes stiffing of heart muscles that makes them to relax less between …show more content…
That is why, heart may not pump sufficient blood to body. Moreover, during activity heart may not contract properly due to thickened heart walls and can be less responsive to stimulation of nervous system (Young, n.d.). The blood vessels that are the part of our circulatory system also undergo subtle changes during aging process. Changes include loss of elastic property of blood vessels and this could reduce their ability to maintain blood pressure effectively (Young n.d.). According to Jackson & Wenger (2011), “An important concept in the physiology of cardiovascular aging is ventricular-vascular coupling. This theorizes that the increase in vascular and left ventricular stiffness combine to achieve stability in resting cardiac output at advanced age; however, these changes impair the ability of the cardiovascular system to accommodate to stress. That is why, in older adults, cardiac output and index at rest are normal, but do not increase as significantly during exercise and stress as those of the younger patient, due to a variety of factors, including decreased response to autonomic nervous