Physiological Changes Associated with Aging and the Complications - Research Paper Example

The researcher states that the normal aging process in the human body is not a disease, yet involves functional degradation, susceptibility to disease, and progression to the death of the individual. With the death of the individual inevitable, the interest in aging lies in the susceptibility to disease and the interval to death. Gompertz's law suggests a pattern for susceptibility to death, which is that in the modern world human death rate doubles with every eight years of advance in age, as a consequence of the aging processes in the human body.

There are gender differences in the susceptibility to death from aging in humans. The susceptibility is higher in the male gender than in the female gender. The human body is a functional system. In evaluating the consequences of aging, the concept of failure in the system becomes relevant. From the perspective of the reliability theory, failure of the human body system is the outcome of deviation from the “optimistically anticipated and desired behavior”. There are two most often used classifications for this failure in the human body.

They are degradation failures and catastrophic failures or fatal failures. Degradation failures are those failures in the human body, wherein a component or group of components of the human body no longer functions at the proper levels. Catastrophic failures or fatal failures in the human body occur when a component or group of components in the human body cease to function. . Age-related structural changes that occur in the heart are an increase in the size of the heart muscles and an increase and thickness in the heart chambers and heart cells.

These age-related structural changes, with particular emphasis on the left ventricle, have an impact on the pumping efficacy of the heart. The impact causes a reduction in the heart muscle flexibility and through that a reduction in the pumping efficacy of the heart. Nevertheless, generally speaking, normal age-related changes in the heart have no effect on the contractile force of the heart and its ability to meet the need of pumping blood throughout the human body (Yee-Melichar, Boyle & Flores, 2011, p.356). There is a greater impact of age-related changes on the flow of blood in the human body.

With age, the walls of the arteries stiffen and twist, which increases the resistance to the flow of blood in these blood vessels. This leads to the heart having to apply more pressure for the flow of blood through these blood vessels. The increased pressure along the blood vessels from this response of the heart can lead to damage and more changes in the arteries. Age-related changes also occur in the veins. These changes include thickening of the walls of the veins, more dilation of the veins, and reduced elasticity of the walls of the veins.

In addition, there is a reduction in the efficiency of the working of the valves in the veins to return blood to the heart. The consequence of all these changes is that there reduced return of blood from the body to the heart, resulting in the pooling of blood in the extremities. These result in dependent edema in the lower extremities, when elderly individuals remain seated for long periods, like on long airline journeys (Yee-Melichar, Boyle & Flores, 2011,