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Understanding Heart Rate and Blood Pressure in Older Adults During Ongoing Single‐Task and Dual‐Task Balance Testing Protocols
Author(s) -
Dickens Cameron,
Bigelow Kimberly E.,
Crecelius Anne R.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.lb322
Subject(s) - posturography , blood pressure , balance (ability) , medicine , heart rate , physical medicine and rehabilitation , cardiology , physical therapy
Vestibular function is known to decline as a function of aging in adults, leading to a risk for falls in otherwise healthy people. General cardiovascular function also declines with age, and can increase the risk of cardiac events. Increasingly, progressively challenging tasks are being incorporated into balance testing, some of which might increase cardiovascular stress and yet there is little research to characterize the systemic cardiovascular responses to various balance protocols in aging humans. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to understand changes in heart rate and blood pressure during ongoing balance testing protocols in aging populations. Ten subjects ages 18 to 40 and nine subjects ages 65 and above completed balance testing including under two conditions: a progressive challenge single task (removal of visual and kinesthetic cues); and a dual task (mental arithmetic and balancing a ball on a tray). Blood pressure (via arm cuff) and heart rate (via ECG) were obtained prior to and during the task and balance was assessed via posturography (force plate). As anticipated, older individuals had impaired balance, evidenced by increased sway and greater changes in center of pressure. While both age groups saw minimal changes in cardiovascular variables during the single‐task protocols, the older group experienced augmented changes from control conditions during certain dual‐task protocols compared to their younger counterparts. The older age group exhibited greater changes in systolic pressure (13 ± 3 mmHg vs. 6 ± 3 mmHg), mean arterial pressure (7 ± 2 mmHg vs. 6 ± 2 mmHg), and heart rate (3 ± 1 bpm vs. 0 ± 2 bpm) during the physical dual‐task condition (holding a tray). Overall, the young and old age groups experienced similar cardiovascular effects during ongoing balance testing, except during the physical dual‐task challenge, where the younger subjects experienced much more mild effects than the older subjects. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .