Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of hypotension in older participants and to identify which 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring parameter better correlated with the occurrence of hypotension.
Methods: We studied 588 elderly participants (mean age 78.7 ± 7.1 years; 70% women) who underwent a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring, without moderate-to-severe cognitive impairment, myocardial infarction, or stroke within the previous 6 months; renal (serum creatinine > 2.5 mg/dL), respiratory, or liver insufficiency; and atrial fibrillation.
Results: In older participants, the occurrence of systolic hypotension is very common (≈55% presenting at least one episode of systolic blood pressure (SBP) < 100 mmHg and about 20% presenting ≥10% of the SBP registrations < 100 mmHg). More than 30% of participants with 24-hour SBP, daytime, and nighttime above the reference threshold had hypotension. Hypotension did not correlated with BP variability indices (standard deviation of BPs). None of the parameters commonly present in 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring clinical reports is able to accurately identify those older participants with episode of hypotension.
Conclusion: Episodes of SBP hypotension are extremely common in older participants and do not appear to relate to BP variability indices. Indeed, no parameter of 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring was capable to accurately identify the occurrence of hypotension. We expect that ongoing studies will contribute to identification of specific factors predicting hypotensive episodes in the older participants.