While erectile difficulty and dysfunction can strike any man from time to time regardless of age or health, it's most common in older men and can be extremely troubling. There are many possible causes for erectile dysfunction, and these can range from the physical to the psychological, and from relatively benign to extremely concerning. While a visit to the physician is the best way for a man to learn which factors are involved in causing erectile difficulties, there are a number of common possibilities that are particularly prevalent in aging men.
Tissue Damage
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most common cause of erectile dysfunction is damage to the many tissues and organs responsible for producing an erection. A complicated interaction among the brain, spinal cord, nerves, muscles, and blood vessels produces the erection response, and the NIH notes that damage to any one of these tissues or organs can result in a diminished or absent erection. Such tissue damage can stem from trauma but is more commonly the product of a disease process such as diabetes, kidney failure, or a host of other organ-based and systemic pathologies that become increasingly prevalent with advancing age.
Cardiovascular Disease
Men, particularly older men, are at high risk for developing symptoms of cardiovascular disease including atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Often associated with high blood pressure, these cardiovascular problems can lead to seemingly unrelated symptoms, including erectile dysfunction, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The reason for this is that the sexual response can occur only under conditions of optimal health; it's quite stressful for the body to produce and maintain the diversion of blood required for an erection. While this stress is not significant in the case of a healthy male, the already over-worked cardiovascular system of an older male experiencing cardiac stress often simply can't produce the blood diversions and pressures required for an erectile response.
Post-Surgical Factors
The AAFP notes that certain surgeries significantly increase the probability of erectile dysfunction. In particular, prostate surgery carries with it a high risk of damage to the nerves of the pubic region, which are crucial to producing and maintaining an erection. Older men are much more likely to experience post-surgical erectile dysfunction simply because they are more likely than their younger counterparts to have experienced prostate surgery. Both benign enlarged prostate and prostate growths or cancers are more common in older men.
Psychological Factors
The Mayo Clinic lists various psychological factors as important contributors to erectile dysfunction. Stress, depression, and anxiety all prevent the neural impulses required to produce erection. Fatigue, too, can reduce the body's ability to achieve erection. In older men, sometimes simply worrying that it will be difficult to get or maintain an erection can prevent one. The concern creates a self-fulfilling prophecy through generating enough anxiety that erection is simply impossible. In the absence of a physical problem responsible for erectile dysfunction, sometimes it helps simply to relax and stop worrying.
