Chronic diseases
Diabetes, heart failure or kidney failure are chronic diseases wich affect more than 65 millions people in Europe. It is a real problem of public health wich concern all of us.
Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump sufficiently to maintain blood flow to meet the body’s needs. The main symptom of the disease is dyspnea (breathlessness). According to the Society of Cardiology, it has a prevalence of 1 to 2% of the population in developed countries, most commonly people over the age of 65 with cardiac decompensation.
Diabetes affects 422 million patients worldwide. This chronic disease is characterised by chronic hyperglycemia which is an abnormally high blood glucose (blood sugar) level. There are 2 main types of diabetes: Type 1 diabetes that causes the insulin producing cells in the pancreas to be destroyed, and type 2 diabetes affecting 92% of diabetics. The predisposing factors for this type are age, being overweight and physical inactivity.
Kidney failure is impaired kidney function. This can be either acute and reversible, or chronic, resulting in a long decline in the function of both kidneys with no ability to heal. In half of all cases, kidney failure is due to diabetes, hypertension or other chronic diseases. Controlling these risk factors reduces the progression of kidney failure.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (or COPD) is a lung disease characterised by chronic obstruction of the airways. In 90% of cases, smoking is the cause. The first clinical signs typically appear after the age of 50 following the early stage of the disease when no symptoms are present.
Theses chronic conditions cause many hospitalizations that impair the quality of life of patients. In the case of heart failure, hospitalization are caused by cardiac decompensation wich is called : Acute Decompensation Heart Failure (ADHF).
To avoid this, theses diseases need a regular and strict trace, performed by the patient himself. The problem is that the patient haven’t the medicals skills to anticipate risky situation of decompensation.