Treatment of hypertension in the elderly.
Several trials performed in elderly patients have demonstrated that antihypertensive drugs are effective in both systo-diastolic and isolated systolic hypertension, reducing the incidence of fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events. However because of technical and design problems, the studies carried out to date have involved highly selected patients, almost always without any target organ damage, independent, cognitively normal and with low comorbidity. Therefore, trial results may be transferred to clinical practice only with some caution. Therapeutic behavior could be different in the presence of diseases associated with hypertension: a) in case of associated specific cardiovascular complications and/or diseases, such as diabetes or dyslipidemia, which could increase cardiovascular risk, treatment must be more aggressive; b) in case of associated diseases with fatal prognosis, treatment is aimed at preventing hypertensive emergencies; c) in case of associated diseases, which are not life-threatening but require chronic pharmacological intervention, drug interaction must be carefully considered. Finally, sudden and significant blood pressure drops due both to overdosage of antihypertensive drugs and/or to intercurrent illnesses must be prevented, because the reduction of blood flow may induce severe target organ ischemia.
Abate
G
G
Dipartimento di Medicina e Scienze dell'Invecchiamento, Università degli Studi G D'Annunzio, Chieti. g.abate@dmsi.unich.it
Zito
M
M
Di Iorio
A
A
Daniele
F
F
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents