[Cognitive dysfunction and brain perfusion in patients with arterial hypertension: possibilities of pharmacological therapy].

The study included 31 patients with essential hypertension. Twenty-four hours blood pressure monitoring, assessment of neurological status and cognitive functions as well as single photon emission tomography were performed at baseline and three months after treatment. The beta-blocker therapy during 3 months exerted a positive effect on the brain perfusion that resulted in the improvement of cognitive function - verbal and visual memory, attention, psychomotor speed, thinking and visuoconstruction.

[Correlation between indices of 24-h monitoring of blood pressure and disturbed venous cerebral outflow in hypertensive patients].

AIM: To study relations between disturbances of cerebral venous circulation and parameters of 24-h blood pressure monitoring in hypertensive patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 72 patients aged 28 to 60 years with essential hypertension of stage II have undergone 24-h blood pressure monitoring and MR-venography of the brachiocephalic veins on a low-field MR-tomograph using 2D TOF angiography. RESULTS: Symptoms of disturbed cerebral venous circulation were found in 60% patients. Major venous collectors were asymmetric in 79.2% patients, 40.3% had marked asymmetry, 14% had severe asymmetry. Disturbances of venous outflow significantly more frequently occurred in non-dippers and night-peakers as well as in high variability of blood pressure. Patients with marked asymmetry of venous collectors had elevated nocturnal systolic and diastolic blood pressure, high load indices of nocturnal systolic and diastolic pressure, a low degree of nocturnal fall of blood pressure. CONCLUSION: Disturbance of venous cerebral outflow in hypertensive patients is closely related with alterations of a circadian profile of blood pressure: circadian index of blood pressure, variability of blood pressure.

[Recognition of actual periods of nocturnal rest from 24-hour heart rate profile].

UNLABELLED: Inability to delineate exactly periods of nocturnal sleep and diurnal wakefulness during 24-hour blood pressure (BP) monitoring causes reporting of erroneous BP values for these periods. We suggested a simple mathematical algorithm for detection of periods of nocturnal rest determined as period of low values of cardiac rhythm using data of BP monitoring itself. AIM: To compare novel method of recognition of periods of sleep with 2 standard techniques: use of fixed time interval between 23 and 7 hours (1), or period of sleep according to patient's diaries (2). Reproducibility of nocturnal BP lowering between two 24-hour intervals during 48-hour blood pressure monitoring was used as a measure of precision of determination of diurnal/nocturnal BP. METHODS: Ambulatory 48-hour BP monitoring was carried out in 33 patients with uncomplicated stage II hypertensive disease. Automatic analysis of BP monitoring data was performed with the use of specially designed computer application. Standard deviation (SD) of differences (SDD) between pairs of nocturnal BP lowering during 48 hours was used as a measure of reproducibility. RESULTS: Reproducibility of values obtained with novel algorithm (SDD for systolic/diastolic BP 6.7/8.2 mm Hg) was substantially better than those obtained with standard methods (1) and (2) (SDD 13.0/14.8 and 13.5/18.3 mm Hg, respectively). CONCLUSION: The proposed method of recognition of the period of nocturnal rest substantially improved precision of automatic analysis of 24-hour BP monitoring.