Peripheral Vascular Disease: A Case Study

Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a medical condition that affects the blood vessels. One main cause of the peripheral vascular disease is diabetes. Therefore, being diagnosed with diabetes will increase a person’s chances of developing PVD later on in life. Type 2 diabetes occurs in individuals that have had a long history of medical symptoms such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and insulin resistance. After a period of time without treatment, there is a buildup of medical complications. One complication that involves being diabetic is that the insulin receptor or postreceptor becomes defective (Gosnell, 2014). When the insulin receptor and postreceptor become defective it can lead to a decrease in tissue response to
“Complications such as endothelial dysfunction, vascular smooth muscle cell dysfunction, and hypercoagulability…” can occur with continuous untreated diabetes. (Huysman & Mathieu, 2009). Endothelial dysfunction is “involved in a lesion by the promotion of both the early and late mechanisms of atherosclerosis including the up-regulation of adhesion molecules…” (Hadi, Carr. & Suwaidi, 2005). As for hypercoagulability, it plays a big part in creating clots in the blood vessel. Coagulation is the process clots forming through the formation of platelets coming together (“Blood Clotting Disease”, n.d.). In this case, there is an excess amount of coagulation occurring leading to hypercoagulability creating excessive clots. With the accumulation of these factors, it can lead to diabetic arteriopathy. Diabetic arteriopathy is the main cause of peripheral neuropathy (Cormier, Arzelle, &Trevidic, 1996). This is related to micro-angiopathy which affects the small blood vessels (“Thrombotic Microangiopathy”, 2005). Micro-angiopathy is a disease that occurs when the small blood vessels have become altered (“Thrombotic Microangiopathy”, 2005). The changes are due to high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Microangiopathy affects how the kidney functions. According to the article “Thrombotic Microangiopathy”, states that “…capillaries are small blood vessels that are lined up with slippery coating of cells” (“Thrombotic Microangiopathy”, 2005). The capillaries are important to how the blood flows because it is known as endothelial cells and when these two become damaged the blood flow to the kidney becomes slowed. The blood plays an important role in the process of providing oxygen to the body. Plasma is the liquid part of the blood that helps the waste to become urine. There are different parts of the blood such as the red blood cells which carries oxygen from and to the lungs. Platelets are