Health Awareness of Patients With Untreated Headache and Hypertension
Purpose of the study will be to teach health awareness to patients with untreated headache and hypertension, and how it can lead to aneurysms. A convenience sample of (N40) African-American females, Latino groups, and Asians is used.
An aneurysm is an area in a portion of an artery that widens abnormally or balloons due to a weak blood vessel wall. Aneurysm is seen as a localized dilation or out pouching of a vessel wall or cardiac chamber. True aneurysms involve all three layers of arterial wall and are best described as a weakening of the vessel wall.
Aneurysms can occur in any artery, but the most common sites are the major artery coming from the heart, abdominal aorta, the brain, the popliteal artery located behind the knee, the artery in the spleen, and the thoracic aorta. Medical researchers are not certain what causes aneurysms, particularly since some are already present at birth. They assume that congenital defects in the artery wall may be one cause of aneurysm.
The risk of aneurysm is increased by certain physical conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, with the former tending to lead to abdominal aortic aneurysms in particular. Aneurysm may be undiagnosed until the patient goes to the hospital and has any CT scans and MRIs done.
There is also a condition known as a "false aneurysm," or "pseudoaneurysm." A false aneurysm is one that involves injury of the entire blood vessel wall, with blood being retained in the tissues around the injury. This type of aneurysm is usually the result of trauma.
Aneurysms are not common, but when they rupture there is a high risk of death. Each of the types of aneurysm-aortic, cerebral, popliteal, splenic, and so on-has a somewhat different etiology, a different risk level, and a different treatment. Aortic aneurysms, for example, occu...