Arterial pulse wave velocity in elderly patients with dementia

Background:   Cardiovascular events influence the quality of life and mortality of elderly patients. Arterial stiffness measured by aortic pulse wave velocity is a useful means of predicting the presence of cardiovascular diseases, even in subjects over 70 years old. This procedure is non-invasive, but the usefulness and easiness of aortic pulse wave velocity for patients with dementia are still unclear. Therefore, to determine how useful and easy it is to measure aortic pulse wave velocity, we evaluated arterial stiffness in patients with or without dementia who required care and support for their daily life.
Methods:   Fifty-nine subjects over 70-years-old who suffered from dementia were enrolled in this study. After we excluded arteriosclerosis obliterans (ankle-brachial pressure index < 0.80; n =  10) by arterial pulse wave velocity, we classified these subjects into two groups: subjects with Alzheimer's disease ( n  = 25) and subjects with vascular dementia ( n  = 24) who were diagnosed by magnetic resource imaging and mini-mental state examination.
Results:   The authors of the present paper could easily and precisely evaluate arterial stiffness of all patients. The mean pulse wave velocity of right and left brachial-tibial arteries in subjects with Alzheimer's disease (1740 ± 385 cm/s) was significantly lower than those subjects with vascular dementia (2436 ± 586; P  < 0.001).
Conclusion:   The data included in the present study indicate that subjects with Alzheimer's disease had decreased arterial stiffness and would show a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases compared to subjects with other diseases including vascular dementia.