Due to the high prevalence rate of erectile dysfunction, the responsibility of ED management has been shifted to the primary care physicians. As a result, primary care physicians now need to add questions about sexual functioning and satisfaction during the initial patient workup. Patients with ED is treated by the primary care physician, or referred to other health care professionals, depending on the problem presented. Treatment and management of individuals with ED includes patient education, particularly focusing on general sex education and sexually transmitted diseases. Counseling and providing an appropriate treatment of impotence, basing on its main cause are also included in the program. Up to 85% of impotence cases are caused by medical or physical problems, and so, it is essential that a healthy lifestyle and avoidance or moderation in smoking and alcohol are emphasized

Advances in suppositories, injectable medications, implants, and vacuum devices have stretched out the options for men seeking treatment for ED. The medical and surgical advancement in treating erectile dysfunction has helped increase the number of men to seek consult and treatment. Gene therapy for ED is now being tested in several centers in US, and may offer a long-lasting therapeutic approach for ED.

Most research now is focused on using organic sources of treatments and enhancing of the existing ones. Organic sources such as watermelon are being looked into as alternative means to treat impotence. You can read this at http://www.webmd.com/erectile-dysfunction/news/20080701/watermelon-a-natural-viagra. Institutes such as the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) sponsors programs that aim at understanding the causes of erectile dysfunction and at finding treatments to reverse its effects. NIDDK’s Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases supported the researchers who developed Viagra and up to this time, it continuously supports basic research regarding the mechanisms of erection. In addition, continuous support is given in the research of diseases that impair the normal body functions at the cellular and molecular levels, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. These are signs of a growing awareness and acceptance of the problem ED in the society.

Before urologists recognized the physical nature of impotence, treatments generally fell into three categories—aphrodisiacs, surgery or transplants, and mechanical treatments.

Innumerable substances called aphrodisiacs have been used to increase sexual performance. Oysters, lobsters, eggs, and spices are some known aphrodisiacs. Noteworthy to mention, these sources are now recognized to do nothing more than irritate the genital organs. The user interprets this irritation as an increased sexual sensitivity, thereby creating the impression of increased performance.

In the 1880s, French physiologist Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard injected himself with an extract from a dog’s testicles that he claimed to have made him smarter, stronger, and more virile. In the 1920s, Eugen Steinach pioneered a surgical treatment of impotence called vasectomy. In the early twentieth century, Swiss professor Paul Niehans treated men with testicular cell injections. Another surgeon, Dr. Leo Stanley removed the testicles of recently executed prisoners and transplanted them into impotent prisoners. When the supply ran low, he substituted them with goat, ram, boar, and deer testicular tissues. It remains unclear whether any of these early attempts to treat impotence through the use of human or animal testicular tissue have actually worked. Most of the researchers mentioned eventually fell into disrepute.

In the US, Dr. John R. Brinkley broadcasted male impotence cures in his radio programs. He recommended expensive goat gland implants and “mercurochrome” injections as the paths to restore male virility. His medical license was revoked, and his radio license was not renewed.

For mechanical devices, many types of splints have been used to treat impotence, including hollowed-out antlers and horns. Although these initial attempts failed, penile prostheses are recently proven to be particularly reliable. During the 70s, surgeons began providing patients with inflatable penile implants.

The use of medications started in the ninth century until the sixteenth century. Muslim physicians and pharmacists in the medieval Islamic world were the first to prescribe medications for ED. They developed several methods of therapy, which include a single or a combination of drugs and food. Most were oral medications, though a few patients were also treated through topical and transurethral means. In 1983, modern drug therapy for ED made a significant exploit when British physiologist Giles Brindley, Ph.D. dropped his trousers and demonstrated to a shocked American Urological Association audience his phentolamine-induced erection. The drug he injected into his penis was a vasodilator, and the mechanism of action was muscle relaxation. This discovery established the fundamentals for the later development of orally-effective drug therapies. In 1998, a breakthrough in medicine occurred with the introduction of Viagra in the market as an effective drug against erectile dysfunction. The drug was originally researched for its beneficial effects in chronic increase in blood pressure and chest pains. A few years later, vardenafil and tadalafil are introduced as effective erections drugs.