European Society of Hypertension Scientific Newsletter: clinical value of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring

Time-independent indices of circadian blood pressure and heart rate regulation from ambulatory blood pressure monitoring

“…Beyond simple alterations in average pressure values obtained from the entire recording or from subperiods, such as daytime and night-time, other indices, such as the partial or total loss of diurnal variation in arterial pressure (i.e. the dipper vs. nondipper status) which is of prognostic importance [1,5,22], might prove of clinical value. However, daytime and night-time periods are arbitrarily defined on the basis of fixed clock-time intervals or the information provided by patients at the time they are going to bed and waking up, respectively.…”

“…Initially reserved for research purposes, ABPM has now entered standard medical practice and is increasingly recommended for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes [1]. Until recently, ABPM has been used mainly to evaluate separately the diurnal arterial pressure and HR profiles, which show, in physiological conditions, higher values of both variables while awake and lower values at the time of night sleep [2,3].…”

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and target organ damage in pediatrics

“…Masked hypertension is a clinical condition that applies to patients whose office BP is normal, but ABP is elevated [110][111][112]. Several factors have been reported in adults to selectively raise ambulatory blood pressure, such as younger age, smoking, alcohol use, contraceptive use in women, sedentary habits, high-normal clinic blood pressure, transiently elevated BP, and increased reactivity to daily life stressors [110,113].…”

Impact of a Pharmaceutical Care Intervention on Blood Pressure Control in a Chain Pharmacy Practice

“…Once a site was selected for inclusion in the PC group, 18 of the 23 pharmacists in the PC sites completed a skills-based training program that we previously developed and passed a thorough evaluation by demonstrating to the training team their ability to measure BP, administer the interview protocols, demonstrate proper patient counseling techniques, and so forth. 7,11 Seven additional pharmacies from the same corporate chain in the same geographic region were selected by their district manager to serve as a concurrent UC control group. The UC group of 14 pharmacists was trained only on data collection and the screening process, not on the cardiovascular intervention.…”