Hypertension in the elderly with advanced locomotive disability

The aim of the study was to estimate the frequency of hypertension among the elderly with advanced locomotive disability and to evaluate the difficulties with the therapy of hypertension in this group of patients. The study was carried out on the base of 100 persons over 60 years old with advanced locomotive disability (groups III and IV according to Piotrowski's classification) selected from about 2000 community-dwelling geriatric patients. The clinical examination (with elements of comprehensive geriatric assessment) and estimation of arterial pressure was made at each patient's home. Among 100 examined probands 43 had normal arterial pressure and the remaining 57 had different forms of hypertension. This group comprised of 84% patients treated with hypotensive drugs, 9% patients without any anti-hypertensive therapy, and 7% patients hypertension were not found earlier. A similar frequency of occurrence of hypertension is given by Kocemba (53.1%) and by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (64.3%). Therapy of hypertension in disabled elderly people was ineffective in most of the studied hypertensive patients (71%).