Risk factor is anything that increases the patient's chances of getting the disease. The risk factors associated with vascular disease are circumstances that can be changed or treated and factors that cannot be changed.

Vascular disorders mainly include the arteries and the veins. Venous diseases are mostly a result of venous hypertension. This could arise because of blockage of the vein or due to incompetence (improper functioning) of the valves within the veins. If blockages occur in the deep veins then it is called Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and if it involves the superficial veins it is known as Thrombophlebitis. If venous valve incompetence is the cause of venous hypertension and it involves the superficial veins then it is responsible for Varicose veins. However if the deep veins have incompetent valves we say it is Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI).

There are two basic defects associated with the arteries -blocked arteries and dilated arteries. Blocked arteries are very common in smokers. This blockage may occur suddenly - acute blockage - due to a clot from the heart and presents as an emergency because it does not give time for development of side channels (collaterals) to supply nutrition and oxygen to the tissue via the blood. Then the blockage may develop over years, slowly. This we call chronic occlusion. The part of the body beyond the blockage suffers from severe pain, numbness, reduced power of movement, cold and pale.

The artery may get dilated due to weakness in the wall - aneurysm. The main danger is sudden bursting of the artery which could be life threatening.