Crohns Disease

981 Words2 Pages

Crohn's Disease Crohn's disease is the generic name for regional enteritis, which is a type of Irritable Bowel Disease. The initial onset of this disease is between the ages of 15 to 30 years old with about 4 out of 1000 people being affected (CDC, 2014). The CDC (2014) also states that the United States has a “1.7 billon dollar” annual financial burden resulting from ”700,000 physician visits, 100,000 hospitalizations, and disability in 119,000 patients” yearly. There is presently no cure for Crohn's, although certain medications and treatments have been proven to take the disease into remission. Crohn’s disease is a realitivly new disease, without a cure, than can be controlled and let the patient live a normal life. History Back in 1769, Italian physician Giovanni Morgagni was the first to describe the a new condition that affected the gastroenterologic tract (UCB, 2014). He had no idea what was going on at the time, other than one of his patients had a new disease. Successive reports of this disease by John Berg, Antoni Lesniowski, and Kennedy Dalziel where all recorded within the next 144 years (UCB, 2014). It wasn’t until 1907 when Burill Bernard Chron was working on a seventeen year old patient, that his coworkers and he refused to use the diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis (UCB, 2014). In 1932 they came up with the name terminal ileitis, which would subsequently be named to as regional enteritis, or Chron`s disease (UCB, 2014). Since 1932, advancements in treatment and research have come in rapid sequence. Risk Factors Although much is yet unknown about Crohn's, there are several risk factors that are bring presented in current research. With a common occurrence between first degree relatives, there is a suggestion t... ... middle of paper ... ...ect the patients body, to allow them to watch for and avoid those foods if at all possible (Crohns and Colitis Foundation of America, 2012). Diet can also be affected by shortening of the bowel during surgery, causing absorption issues which may indicate needing more food or special nutrition to make up for what is being otherwise lost. Conclusion Even though we are learning information every day, there is still much to learn about Crohn’s disease. Crohn's disease is often referred to as a silent disease because the person standing next to you engaging in everyday activities may have the disease. They might be seeing the doctor for the disease or even worse, not even know they have it yet. Once managed, those with Crohn's disease are not confined by their illness and are able to participate in many of the activities that their healthy counterparts are able to do.

More about Crohns Disease

Open Document