Atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial illness marked by the production of cholesterol-containing plaque in the pronounced intima closest to the heart's elastic-type arteries with high blood flow. Plaques occur when the endothelium in areas of turbulent blood flow is damaged by arterial pressure. It affects the majority of the Western population, including children and teenagers. This refutes the idea that atherogenesis is a single-gene disease. It was revealed in 1988 that atherogenesis requires the presence of atherogenic (modified, including oxidised) LDLs. We developed a new hypothesis describing the fundamental determinants of atherogenesis based on our discovery, which suggested that lipid overloading of enterocytes could contribute to the creation of modified LDLs only 8 articles meet the criteria and the data were collected from the 8 articles. The findings indicated that patient assessment, exercise, physical counselling, diet/nutritional counselling, tobacco cessation, mental health, return to work, lipids, hypertension, cardio-protective therapies are essential components for the rehabilitation after heart valve surgeries, to support patients and their families to cope with challenges related to surgeries. These in return improve quality of life for the patients concerned. The core components for the cardiac rehabilitation programmes as highlighted by the international guidelines can be adapted to the cardiac rehabilitation programme in Namibia if tailored to the contextualized needs for the cardiac patients in Namibia.