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Essay on sickle cell
Essays on sickle cell disease with reference
An Overview Of Sickle Cell Disease
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What is Sickle cell disease? Sickle cell affects a disease; that disease is called which affects the hemoglobin when the red blood cells that send oxygen through the body are killed off and weakened. Sickle cells can be found in every 1 and 1000 African Americans, it is affecting about 70,000 to 80,000 Americans in the United States. Sickle cell is a death threatening disease, and the severity of symptoms can vary from person to person (Sickle cell disease (SCD), 2015). Some people have light conditions, but others can have severe conditions, which, mean they could be hospitalized. Characteristics of this disease are caused by a minimum of low blood cells, which is called anemia. Symptoms of a sickle cell are shortness of breath or fatigue and delayed growth in the development of children. Severe pain can be caused as a symptom when the blood gets stopped up in the vessel and causes the patient 's heart to pump slower, so people begin to feel pain in the body and feel out of breath. …show more content…
In the continent Africa, about 1 in 100 individuals develops this disease. We ask ourselves why is the frequency of a potentially fatal disease so much higher in Africa? The answer is related to another deadly disease, which is called malaria. Chills, fever, vomiting, and severe headaches characterize malaria (GENETICS Sickle Cell Case Study. (n.d.). 2000, October 19). Malaria is caused by a disgusting parasite called Plasmodium that is transmitted to humans by mosquitos. When the malaria parasites invade the bloodstream, the red blood cells that contain defective hemoglobin get sickle cell out and die (Facts About Sickle Cell Disease. 2014, January 16). This helps protect the individual with Sickle Cell Anemia from an infection of malaria. As you can see, this is why a variety of areas in the world has a high rate of malaria, such as
Sickle cell disease is a group of disorders that affects the blood, specifically, a molecule called hemoglobin in red blood cells (“sickle cell disease”, 2016). Hemoglobin is a molecule that facilitates the delivery of oxygen throughout the body (“sickle cell disease”, 2016). A mutant form of the hemoglobin molecule causes red blood cells to become crescent shaped or “sickled shaped” (Lonergan et. al. 2001). This distorted shape of red blood cells causes rigidity of the blood cells and vaso-occulusion (or the blood vessels to become clogged) (Rees et.al., 2010). This often leads to a low number of red blood cells (anemia), repeated infections and episodes of pain that are periodic (“Sickle cell disease”, 2016). Although sickle cell disease
SCD has major social and economic implications for the affected child and the families. Recurrent sickle-cell crises interfere with the patient’s life, especially with regard to education, work and psychosocial development (WHO). Sickle cell anemia, specifically, is a serious disease that can require frequent hospital stays. Repeated hospitalization for intravenous pain medication, antibiotic therapy and blood transfusions is undertaken to treat medical problems as about 1 in every 10 children with sickle cell disease. People with SCD may suffer abdominal pain, breathlessness, delayed growth and puberty, fatigue, fever, ulcers, among others. These patients often die early of overwhelming infection or as a consequence of acute or chronic damage to the body organs. Those with sickle cell disorder often suffer neglect and
“In the United States, it's estimated that sickle cell anemia affects 70,000–100,000 people, mainly African Americans” (NHLBI, NIH, Who is at risk for sickle cell anemia). SCD is a disease that is a serious disorder in which the body can make normal blood cells and sickle shape cells. Sickle shape cells can block the blood flow in your vessels and cause pain or organ damage also put you in risk for infections. SCD has no cure available but there are many treatments out there to deal with the complications of it. From over years treatments did get better from way back in the day doctors have learned. Sickle cell disease has lack of attention and funding because it’s only affecting African American the most.
Sickle cell disease can be very discomforting and painful for those who suffer with the symptoms that it brings interrupting the lives of patients. Even though sickle cell disease has no cure it can still be managed to where the patient can live a comfortable life.
Sickle Cell is a disease that affects many people in the world today. It is the number one genetic disorder in the United States. Sickle Cell is deficient hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is what functions in providing oxygen to the cells in the body. The sickle shape comes from the atypical hemoglobin s molecules. Hemoglobin molecules are composed of two different parts called the alpha and beta. The beta subunit of the hemoglobin molecule has a mutation in gene, on chromosome 11 which produces the change in the red blood cell shape causing them to die and not reproduce accurately. The change in shape causes the red blood cells to get stuck in the blood vessels and block the effectiveness of oxygen transport causing pain and organ damage to the body. This disease does not have a cure and some common treatments are used to help patients live with the disease. Some treatment options are antibiotics (penicillin) to prevent infections, blood transfusions, folic acid that help produces new blood cells. These are just some of the current treatments for Sickle Cell.
The problem is that sickle cell anemia affects about 72,000 Americans in the United States. Sickle cell anemia is an inherited disease in which the body is unable to produce normal hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein. Abnormal hemoglobin can morph cells that can become lodged in narrow blood vessels, blocking oxygen from reaching organs and tissues. The effects of sickle cell anemia are bouts of extreme pain, infectious, fever, jaundice, stroke, slow growth, organ, and failure.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sickle cell disease (SCD) affects millions of people worldwide and predominantly affects descendants from sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Saudi Arabia, India; and the Mediterranean. Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder of the red blood cells where the red blood cells comprises of predominantly hemoglobin S, an abnormal type of hemoglobin (2011). Two most common types of sickle cell disease seen in the clinical setting are Sickle Cell Anemia (SS) and Sickle-Hemoglobin C Disease (SC) (Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, 2014, para.1).
Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases are treated at home, one in twenty children die of the disease before they reach the age of five. Pregnant women are also more vulnerable to disease and in certain parts of Africa, they are four times as likely to contract the disease and only half as likely to survive it.
Sickle cell anemia is a genetically inherited and is a lifelong disease. Sickle cell anemia affects the red blood cells because it causes the cells to be crescent shape instead of how a normal cell looks like: an oval disk. This causes the circulation of the blood flow throughout the body to be clogged more often because people with sickle cell tend to have more blood clots. This also exhausts the body a lot more and people with this particular disease are more likely to get winded by a short physical activity. Sickle cell disease is caused by a mutation in the beta-globin gene. The main symptoms of sickle cell are shortness of breath, fatigue, difficulty breathing, deterioration of athletic performance, weakness, headaches, and dizziness. Another set of key features that
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one of the most common human genetic disorders. SCD is a pleiotropic genetic disorder, meaning that one mutation affects a wide variety of physical characteristics (15). currently affects 90,000 Americans and over 275,000 newborn infants annually worldwide (8). The average life expectancy has been calculated to be about 53 and 58 years for men and women respectively (10). The term Sickle cell disease actually refers to all of the various mutagenic genotypes that cause the various clinical manifestations otherwise known as a syndrome (1). In this condition, hemoglobin proteins of erythrocytic blood cells are misshapen, so the oxygen carrying capability is affected (2). SCD was first described by the physician James
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is an inherited red blood cell disorder that can clog blood flow. The symptoms for the SCD vary from mild to severe depending on which type of sickle cell disease a person has. Most infants will not show symptoms until they are 5-6 months of age. Some of the early symptoms that a child can get are painful swelling of hands or feet, fatigue, jaundice or icteris. Infants before eight weeks old are to have their first SCD screening. It is best do it that early because complications can be prevented with an early diagnosis and treatment. A more common and severe sickle cell disease that a child can inherit from a parent is called the hemoglobin SS disease, also know as sickle cell anemia. People with this disease do not
Like many disorders, sickle cell disease is inherited. A person who has the disorder must inherit the two genes for sickle hemoglobin from one’s parents. Many people could be carriers for the disease,possess no symptoms, and later pass it on to their own children. Furthermore, when you were conceived, you received a set of genes from your dad(sperm) and another set from your mom(egg). Inside structures, called chromosomes, where DNA is tightly coiled, there contained are
Under conditions such as high elevation and intense exercise, a carrier of the sickle cell disease may occasionally show symptoms such as pain and fatigue.
Sickle Cell Disease is inherited from parent to offspring. In the last counseling session, I mentioned that the disease is caused by the mutation in chromosome 11. This mutation does not occur randomly. The mutation first occurred thousands of years ago, and ever since then, the select few offsprings of the person that first received the mutation have inherited the mutated gene (controls inherited traits).
Hemoglobin, which carries oxygen through the blood, is affected. People with sickle-cell disease have the abnormal molecule of hemoglobin S. This results in the red blood cells acquiring a crescent shape instead of the regular circular shape. . These oddly shaped cells sometimes block capillaries and therefore lead to tissue damage.THere are also exterior symptoms. Sickle-cell disease also is accompanied by dactylitis, the swelling of hands and feet. It also may cause jaundice, a yellow coloring of the skin. Fatigue and restlessness can also be of a