Father 's Side Of The Family

Paternal Health Summary. From the information I gathered from my father’s side of the family, I found a recurring trend of cardiovascular problems on my grandfather’s side of the family and substance abuse and diabetes on my grandmother’s side. My Grandpa Jerry and his biological family members have suffered from heart disease in their later years in life; however, my family members did not maintain healthy diets, did not involve themselves in regular exercise, or obtain regular checkups to the doctors which may count for some of the cause of their heart issues. On the other hand, after talking to my father and my Grandpa Jerry, I found that many family members on the Patty family side have suffered from heart attacks but continued to live for several years after their episodes, but how? Maybe it is a genetic trait or it just wasn’t their time to go; either way heart disease is a major killer in my family that I will have to watch for closely throughout my life.
On my Grandma Mary’s side, I see an overwhelming amount of deaths directly connected to alcohol abuse, obesity, and type 2 diabetes; this showing that their lifestyle choices were the cause of many of their health related problems. Since many of Grandma Mary’s family members live on the west coast, I had no contact with them; however, my father has told me that much of our family has stayed away from my Grandma Mary’s side because the health choices they have made have created stress on the family. This may be the reason I see a change in some lifestyle behaviors in my father’s generation when it comes to substance abuse. On the other hand, in the case of my father and my Great Uncle Don, you see that their military involvement created many of the health related issues t...

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... family members and that my theory is that depression had a lot of impact on the decisions that my family members made. When I combined both my mother and father’s family together, I see patterns that exist in their behaviors that directly link to depression. For example, my 17 year old brother has been under the influence of drugs and alcohol and though he is young, if you look into my family history, many of my family members started abusing at very young ages, which may become a recurring pattern in my brother’s life if he doesn’t find professional help for his genetic depression. My hope is that with the information from this project and from this course, I will be able to share with my family and my future children how genetics and health behaviors play a huge part in what happens to your health but that there is hope and a better way to handle your depression.