[Morphologic and functional heart changes in a group of healthy elderly individuals aged 70 years and over]

BACKGROUND. The increasing age of the population, makes necessary to have "normal values" in order to make diagnosis and treatment in this population group. The purpose of this study is to determine the morphological and functional changes in a group of healthy aged above 70 years.

We studied 125 subjects older than 70 years, mean of 74.9 and 50 healthy aged 9-45, with a mean of 25.8, who served as control group. Twenty-five were excluded by history, chest X-Ray, ECG and Echocardiogram because cardiac disease. An echocardiographic M and 2D and pulsed Doppler study, was done to obtained several morphological and systolic and diastolic function parameters. A good quality echo to measure morphologic and systolic function was obtained in 69 study group patients. In all study and control group, was obtained a good quality mitral flow signal to measure diastolic function.