Impact of Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis, Essay Example

IFIU

Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis, the key clinical conditions in affecting the quality of life and expectancy were known to exert high incidence amongst American’s aged between 50 to 84 years of age. This study makes an effort in developing an abstract for a modeling study carried out by Losina and co-workers in 2011. The context, purpose, method, findings and conclusions of the study were depicted concisely with the implicative information governing the role of advanced practice nurse as health care providers.

Key words: Obesity, Knee Osteoarthritis, Quality-adjusted life-years, Modeling, Computer-simulation, Osteoarthritis Policy model, Life expectancy and Quality of Life.

Abstract

Losina, E., Walensky, R.P., Reichmann, W.M., Holt, H.L., Gerlovin, H., Solomon, D.H., Jordan, J.M., Hunter, D.J., Suter, L.G., Weinstein, A.M., Paltiel, A.D and Katz, J.N. (2011). Impact of Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis on Morbidity and Mortality in Older Americans, Annals of Internal Medicine, 154, 217-226.

Background

The contribution towards the increased prevalence of major chronic diseases like Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis had found to be higher with contemporary effects from the related co-morbid conditions and prejudices that impact the life quality and quantity. Amongst the various chronic types of chronic conditions, the two prime conditions-Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis, had known to exert an impact on adult Americans of 50 to 84 years age.

Purpose

• Investigating the role of Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis towards the reduction of the quality of life and comparing the health benefit levels pertaining to the minimization of obesity prevalence.
• Quantifying the survival and benefits of preventing obesity for race and sex-classified populations.

Methods

The study utilised Osteoarthritis Policy (OAPol) model to assess the loss of quality-adjusted life-years amongst the 50-84 years aged American population suffering with Obesity, Knee Osteoarthritis and both. The use of state transition and computer-based model, helped in, characterizing the individual’s clinical development and, effect of two explored clinical conditions.

Findings

Estimation of complete loss of an individual’s quality of life had outlined the range from 1.857 among non-obese knee osteoarthritis individuals to 3.501 individuals affected with both of the clinical conditions indicating around 86.0 million of life year’s loss owing to Obesity, Knee Osteoarthritis and both. The findings of OAPol model had ascertained that, backing the levels of obesity to those witnessed before 10years would deter the coronary heart disease (178071), diabetes (889872) and knee replacement (111206) cases. This reduction may increase the chances of life expectancy (7812120) and quality of life (6318030) years within the American adults of 50-84 years of age.

Conclusions

Substantial number of results indicated a loss of quality-adjusted life-years with black and Hispanic population indicating disproportionate results.

This modelling study that coupled the information from various national sources indicated considerable losses of life expectancy for adult and aged American population due to Obesity and Osteoarthritis. The multidimensional and characteristic nature of disease burden on adult and aged American’s affect the advanced practice nurse (APN) in exercising enhanced degree of care and support. As the crucial health care providers, the role of APN appears to be crucial in increasing the life expectancy and quality of life. Furthermore, the explored ascription of loss of quality-adjusted life-years together with variable differences of age and sex-related mortality needs to be minimized by health care providers, when aiming towards advanced levels of nursing practice. Though the implications of the study underscore the significance of implementing quality of life measures, APN’s should play the key role in investigating the enhanced burden of such clinical conditions. With the increasing incidence of Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis subjecting a loss to the quality-adjusted life-years, the crucial role of APN as the health care providers in delivering enhanced levels of care is highly worthy and significant in the future.