Why elderly adults with high blood pressure requires specific care?

Abstract

Introduction: age-related disease groups have increased significantly in recent years, exposure to health problems over a lifetime impacts on the fact that people reach the elderly with chronic diseases and deteriorated health. The pathophysiological consequences of arterial hypertension in the brain often affect prefrontal subcortical areas and produce deficit in abstraction, goal setting, and executive functions. The components of the cognitive functions that were related to alterations of the blood pressure in the analyzed studies were the memory, the executive functions, the language and the attention. In particular, the presence of alterations or damage in executive functions not only generates a decrease in the functional capacity of the individual, but also causes certain changes in the family dynamics of the affected person. Even the person becomes more susceptible to some degree of dysfunction that can change their quality of life irreversibly, causing a decrease in functionality that can later translate into physical and cognitive disability.