AMBULATORY BLOOD-PRESSURE MONITORING IN ELDERLY HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) has been shown to provide a reliable estimation of hourly blood pressure values over the 24 hour s. Favourable features of this technique are the lack of alerting reac tion to automatic blood pressure readings, at variance from what usual ly occurs when blood pressure is measured in the doctor's office, and the ability of ABPM to provide information on the 24 hour blood pressu re profile without interfering with the physiological nocturnal hypote nsion. Although automatic blood pressure readings obtained in free-mov ing subjects are not always accurate, ABPM has been shown to represent a useful approach to evaluate the efficacy of antihypertensive drugs, as it allows to compare the 24 hour blood pressure profile obtained b efore and during treatment. Its feasibility to this aim is emphasized by the reproducibility of 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure profiles, which do not show any placebo effect. ABPM has been also employed to i nvestigate 24 hour blood pressure fluctuations and to monitor the anti hypertensive treatment in elderly hypertensives, in whom the evaluatio n of the actual time-course of the drug-induced blood pressure reducti on over the day and night represents a crucial problem.