Effect of Aging on Short Term Heart Rate Variability

Abstract

Background: Heart rate variability has been considered as an indicator of autonomic nerve function status. Few works have been done to assess the heart rate variability in normal healthy subjects in different countries. Objectives: To assess the cardiac autonomic nerve function status in healthy Bangladeshi population of different age groups by analyzing time domain measures of Heart Rate Variability. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka from the period of July 2012 to June 2013. For this purpose, a total number of 180 healthy subjects were selected with the age ranging from 15-60 years of both sexes. All the study subjects were divided into 3 different groups according to age (Control 15-30 years; middle age 31-45 years; older age 46-60 years). Each group included 60 subjects of which 30 were male and 30 were female. The subjects were selected from different areas of Dhaka city by personal contacts. HRV parameters were recorded by a 4 active channels, RMS Polyrite-D-2 machine For statistical analysis, one way ANOVA, unpaired Student's 't'-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient test were performed. as applicable. Results: Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were significantly (p<0.001) higher in older group in comparison to control & middle age group. Again RR interval and RMSSD (p<0.001), were significantly lower in older age group (p<0.05) compared to control & also to middle age group. But HR was found significantly higher (p<0.05)in both middle and older subjects than control and also in older (p<0.05) compared to middle age. Correlation analysis showed moderate negative correlation of mean R-R with age in middle age whereas significant negative correlation for RMSSD both in middle and older age subjects.. Conclusion: In this study, markedly decreased cardiac parasympathetic function were found with aging process.

Feasibility of smart wearables for driver drowsiness detection and its potential among different age groups

“…Besides HRV being used to detect drowsiness, in this work it will be investigated, whether factors affecting and altering HRV among humans are also reflected in the development of drowsiness detection models and the resulting detection accuracy will also be investigated. Age, in particular, has a strong effect on HRV, which has already been investigated and confirmed in numerous studies, both in the context of long-term (Umetani et al, 1998) and in short-term measurements (Akhter et al, 2015;Voss et al, 2015;Nunan and Brodie, 2010), which are part of this work. In general, from the results in previous work, it can be said that a lower HRV indicates higher biological age (older) (O'Brien et al, 1986).…”

Resting heart rate variability and plasma noradrenaline level as a measurement of autonomic nervous system activity in mature, aging rats

“…In the 24-hour Holter recordings, Reardon et al [18] proved that aging reduced the global HRV measure and concluded that the process may reflect a reduced responsiveness of autonomic activity to various stimuli with age. In another study performed by Akhter et al [19], cardiac autonomic impairment with the advancement of age was demonstrated, and the detailed HRV analysis demonstrated a decreased parasympathetic function. Those findings were confirmed by Shankar and Veeraiah [20] who demonstrated a parasympathetic dysfunction in the elderly, using classical Ewing's clinical autonomic tests (deep breathing, Valsalva maneuver, standing orthostatic response).…”

Time Domain Measures of Heart Rate Variability to Assess Cardiac Autonomic Nerve Function in Adult Bangladeshi Male and Female

“…9,11,[15][16][17] Similarobservations were reported by the researchers in our country. [18][19][20][21][22] Different timedomain components of HRV has been used as marker of cardiac autonomic activity. 13 The task force guideline for HRV analysis have demonstrated the interpretation of these parameters to understand the status, behaviour and the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic due to their continuous interaction.…”