Influence of Aging on Short- and Long-term Heart Rate Variability in Patients with Heart Failure

Along the last years, the number of HRV studies has been widely grown. The computation of HRV linear and non-linear parameters allows the quantification of the cardiac frequency modulation and of the possible link between them and different pathologies. In the literature, significant variations of HRV linear and non-linear parameters are described, with the focus on age related changes in healthy subjects. The aim of this study is to evaluate the possible presence of age related changes in HRV parameters in congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. The RR time series extracted from 80 CHF patients, divided by age into two groups, have been accurately analyzed. The results point out a linear influence of age on characteristic parameters extracted from these patients; the behaviors of these parameters are opposite to the literature results obtained in healthy subjects. We hypothesize that this discrepancy may be due to the RR data selection and to their pre-processing phase as well as to some clinical factors as the neuro hormonal imbalance characteristic of the CHF disease that often produces a sympathetic activation.