{"id":1000,"date":"2009-11-26T02:03:35","date_gmt":"2009-11-26T07:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/11\/26\/heart-valve-disease-seniors-elderly\/"},"modified":"2019-02-26T21:02:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T02:02:11","slug":"heart-valve-disease-seniors-elderly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/11\/26\/heart-valve-disease-seniors-elderly\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How Common Is Heart Valve Disease Among Seniors?&#8221; Asks Heidi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received a great question from Heidi about heart valve disease, surgery and seniors.<\/p>\n<p>She writes, &#8220;Adam &#8211; My mom, Betty, has recently been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/01\/30\/severe-aortic-stenosis-definition-criteria-symptoms-surgery\/\">diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis<\/a>. Although her murmur was detected years ago, I never thought she would need open heart surgery. She&#8217;s 68 but acts like she&#8217;s 38. No symptoms at all. I&#8217;m curious&#8230; How common is valve disease and surgery among seniors? Thanks, Heidi&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Seniors With Heart Valve Disease\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/Seniors-heart.jpg\" width=\"366\" height=\"244\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Considering the aging of the population, I imagine Heidi&#8217;s question will be on the minds of many sons and daughters in the near future. Interestingly enough, I was just reading a market research report summary by <em>GlobalData<\/em> which suggests that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The incidence of valve disease in people over the age of 65 is 29%<\/li>\n<li>The incidence of valve disease in people over the age of 75 is 37%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to the report, valve calcification and degeneration have become the leading causes of valvular disease (e.g. aortic stenosis) instead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-symptoms.php\">congenital bicuspid disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/calcified-leaflets-valve.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nCalcified Heart Valve Leaflets<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Please note that this research report did not differentiate between &#8220;incidence of valve disease&#8221; and &#8220;incidence of valvular surgery&#8221;. That said, I think it is very safe to assume that the actual rate of surgery among the senior population is much, much, much less&#8230; for now.<\/p>\n<p>As you may have seen, recent research from the University of Michigan suggests that up to 50% of patients diagnosed with conditions including aortic stenosis and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/mitral-valve-regurgitation-symptoms-leaking.php\">mitral valve regurgitation<\/a> were not referred for treatment.<\/p>\n<p>In review of these datapoints, it is appropriate to say that valve disease is fairly common among seniors and that the rate of surgery is likely to increase in the future &#8211; especially considering minimally invasive approaches to heart valve surgery.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/calcified-aortic-valve-bicuspid.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/><br \/>\nCalcium Deposits On Bicuspid Aortic Valve (Aortic Stenosis)<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Thanks to medical advances, we are living longer lives. However, it appears that human heart valves may need to evolve faster to counter the degenerative forces (calcium build-up) which cause valve disease. That said, I believe this is one more reason to consider heart valve surgery a &#8220;medical miracle&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this helped Heidi (and perhaps you) learn more about heart valve disease and seniors.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}