Pickens Technical College’s Nurse Aide Pathway: Heart Disease Rising in Colorado

Pickens Technical College’s Nurse Aide program prepares you for a rewarding career working in the healthcare system. There are many healthcare offices, clinics, and other facilities in Colorado looking for qualified, hardworking nurse aides to care for a rising number of patients. As people age, they’ll run into more health problems, and the state’s healthcare industry is reflective of that. This is one of the reasons why healthcare is a popular job market to enter. 

Pickens prepares you to take the certification exam and become qualified for a number of positions in many different healthcare centers, from extended care facilities to home health organizations to hospitals. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities are always in need of skilled nurse aides as well. 

The need for quality healthcare professionals, even in Colorado, the healthiest state in the country, will continue to increase in the coming years. Heart disease, the top killer in the United States overall, is making a comeback, even in health-obsessed Colorado, and many physicians are seeing heart disease symptoms in patients in their 30s and 40s. Let’s examine this problem and see where you can fit into the solution. 

David Rosenbaum Interview Raises Alarm

David Rosenbaum is a prominent cardiologist who works in Colorado Springs for UCHealth. In January, he was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal about the rising occurrences of patients seeing him for heart disease-related complications. 

 Dr. Rosenbaum was alarmed at the number of his new patients who are in their 30s and 40s, typically much too young to be experiencing heart disease symptoms like high blood pressure and arrhythmia. He says this is a change from when he started as a cardiologist nearly 17 years ago. 

Data collected by the WSJ backed Dr. Rosenbaum up. Three Front Range cities, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Greeley recorded some of the largest increases in heart disease-related deaths in the country. In all three cities, the death rate from heart disease spiked by nearly 25%. 

Why Is This Happening?

Colorado has long been known as a haven for health-obsessed residents. Greeley, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs all boast unusually high access and opportunities for people to be active, featuring hiking trails, biking trails, and quality heart disease treatment programs. But this rise in heart disease-related deaths is likely spurred on by rapid urban development in these areas, where former farmland is being developed and paved over to make room for an unprecedented number of new residents every year. The bottom line is, these areas, much like many other regions and urban areas in Colorado, are being changed into places that foster more stress and less opportunity to be active. 

How You Can Help

 If you’re considering enrolling in the Pickens Nurse Aide program, you’ve already started on your path to helping people prevent and deal with heart disease in the future. Even before your first class at Pickens, you can be more aware of how active you and your loved ones are. Exercise and a nutritious diet are important for everyone, no matter their age. If you decide to start your healthcare journey at Pickens, you’ll be even better prepared to help battle this heart disease epidemic.