Abstract
Atherosclerosis as the driven force of coronary artery disease starts at early ages in life and is universally present in patients above 65 years old. Thereby age is the most important (and uninfluenced) risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis and other heart diseases, so that the demographic shift towards an older population will result in dramatically changed clinical and economic needs in order to provide adequate medical care for this population. This chapter about the epidemiology of coronary artery disease in the elderly focuses on the burden of the disease, on subclinical and clinical manifestations, on relevant risk factors for CAD in the elderly, and current available evidences with regard to the management in the primary and secondary prevention of CAD. Life style modifications allow prevention and reduction in the development of atherogenic risk factors such as arterial hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and diabetes mellitus. In addition, pharmacological therapy can adequately treat hypertension and the other atherogenic risk factors. Studies have sufficiently proved that life modification and pharmacological treatment are also effective in elderly patients.
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Garlichs, C. (2015). Epidemiology of Coronary Heart Disease in the Elderly. In: Rittger, H. (eds) Interventional Cardiology in the Elderly. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21142-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21142-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
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