It also brings genetics into the mix. The generally accepted figures are that 5% of individuals of the age of 65 have severe dementia, and another 10% have moderate dementia, with 30% having developed dementia if they live to the age of 90. Introduction. the wheel of causation de emphasizes the agent as the sole cause of disease. 'Multiple causation' is the canon of contemporary epidemiology, and its metaphor and model is the 'web of causation.' Two conceptual questions currently face epidemiology, both relating to causation. The wheel consists of a hub that represents the host and its human characteristics such as genetic makeup, personality, and immunity. Alzheimer’s disease will be the epidemic of the twenty-first century (1,2). First articulated in a 1960 U.S. epidemiology textbook, the 'web' remains a widely accepted but poorly elaborated model, reflecting in part the contemporary stress on epidemiologic methods over epidemiologic theories of disease causation. First, how should it handle certain diseases, which appear to be etiologically more complex than the infections and deficiencies by which epidemiology made its name?In particular, chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) account for a larger proportion of deaths, at least in the … The surrounding wheel represents the environment and comprises biological, social, and physical dimensions. ... causation is the theory that something happened due to a given cause. Transmitted causes ("causes of causes") tend not to be systematically analysed. Web of causation models are especially helpful for finding the causes of genetic diseases. Theories of causation • Old theories • Modern theories – germ theory – multifactorial causation – socioeconomic, cultural, genetic, psychological – epidemiological triad (tetrad) – web of causation – wheel of causation 6First MBBS – Epidemiology series 7. The Wheel of Causation The Wheel of Causation (Mausner & Kramer, 1985) de-emphasizes the agent as the sole cause of disease, while emphasizing the interplay of physical, biological and social environments (Figure 7). Outside the context of infectious diseases, systematic use of diagrams in epidemiology has been mainly confined to the analysis of a single link: that between a disease outcome and its proximal determinant(s). The wheel allows for a multiple-causation theory of disease, it is more useful for analyzing complex chronic conditions. Models of Disease Causation, Germ Theory, Epidemiological Triad, Web and Wheel of Disease Causation. **This model explains multifactorial etiology of chronis diseases and how it is interrelated. For long, man was groping in darkness about the causation of disease. Abstract. 1. Figure 0: The Wheel of Causation One application of The Wheel of Causation The wheel of causation, an alternative model, according to Harkness and DeMarco (2012), “…de-emphasizes the agent as the sole cause of disease, whereas it emphasizes the interplay of physical, biological, and social environments” (p.94). Methods of diagrammatic modelling have been greatly developed in the past two decades. ** When the cause is determined, medical professionals learn more about which groups of people are prone to developing or contracting a certain disease. Cause and effect basically. The purpose is to identify risk factors that can be modified. 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