Real-Time Assessment of Autonomic Nerve Activity During Adaptive Servo-Ventilation Support or Waon Therapy

Adaptive servo-ventilation support and Waon therapy are recently developed non-pharmacological and noninvasive therapies for patients with heart failure refractory to guideline-directed medical therapy. These therapies decrease both preload and afterload, increase cardiac output, and appear to ameliorate autonomic nerve activity. However, the time course of autonomic nerve activity during these therapies remains unclear. We performed heart rate variability analysis using the MemCalc power spectral density method (MemCalc system; Suwa Trust Co, Tokyo) to assess autonomic nerve activity during adaptive servo-ventilation support and Waon therapy in two different cases and determined the time course of autonomic nerve activity during these therapies. During both therapies, we found a drastic increase in parasympathetic nerve activity and continuous suppression of sympathetic nerve activity. Heart rate variability analysis using the MemCalc method may be promising for the assessment of the efficacy of various treatments, including adaptive servo-ventilation support and Waon therapy, from the viewpoint of autonomic nerve activity.