Screening indexes for cardiovascular autonomic failure in Parkinson's disease
Autonomic failure (AF) is a common source of orthostatic hypotension (OH) in Parkinson's disease (PD). The diagnosis of AF is difficult on clinical grounds alone. We used autonomic testing and 24-h BP monitoring (ABPM) in 122 PD patients to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of AF by (1) the reduced heart rate increase to fall in blood pressure (BP) ratio ( ΔHR/ΔSBP), (2) reverse dipping (RD), and (3) increased diurnal systolic BP standard deviation (SD-SBP). Among patients with OH, ΔHR/ΔSBP yielded the best accuracy (85%), with excellent sensitivity (92%) and acceptable specificity (67%).
Source: Journal of the Neurological Sciences - Category: Neurology Authors: F. Vallelonga, G. Sobrero, M. Giudici, M. Valente, V. Milazzo, C. Di Stefano, S. Maule Tags: Clinical short communication Source Type: research