Comparative study of sympathetic function changes in normal and moderately hypertensive patients

Introduction: Hypertension is one of the leading disorders contributing to significant morbidity and mortality in the world today. Today's stressful life and modern life styles including the food habits have increased the incidence, acquiring a status of modern day epidemic along with diabetes mellitus. The onset and severity of complication in a system is said to be dependent on the duration of hypertension and the degree of its control. Autonomic dysfunction is drawing more and more attention of the medical fraternity for its supposed role in sudden deaths observed in hypertensive and diabetics. Aim of the study: Our aim is to Hand grip test and Cold presser test in normotensive and moderately hypertensive patients. Materials and methods: A comparative study of cardiovascular autonomic function tests in hypertensive and normotensive individuals was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Department of Community Medicine, RMMCH-Urban Health Centre, Chidambaram on 25 hypertensive patients in the age group of 30-40 years and age matched control group of 25 normotensive individuals. The study was programmed to assess sympathetic nerve functions based on cardiovascular parameters like blood pressure and heart rate measurement. Among the autonomic function tests discussed in the review of literature. Results: In HGT this is an indicator for sympathetic insufficiency. Rise in DBP of > 16 mmHg is taken as normal. In autonomic disorder the rise is < 10 mmHg. Conclusion: Submerging the limb in ice cold water increases systolic pressure by about 20 mmHg and diastolic pressure by 10 mmHg. The afferent limb of the reflex pathway is somatic fibers whereas the efferent pathway is the sympathetic fibers. This test is not very accurate as the changes are not consistent in all subjects.