Complexidade da variabilidade da frequência cardíaca na síndrome da fragilidade

Abstract

Background: Frailty is a critical state of physiological complexity loss. Evaluation measures of complexity could contribute for a better comprehension regarding the frailty process. Objective: to evaluate complexity of HRV, at rest and after postural change, on frailty syndrome. Design: cross-sectional. Setting: community. Subjects: 100 individuals over 60 years old, distributed in groups according to the frailty phenotype: frail (n=8), pre-frail (n=46) and non-frail (n=46). Methods: The electrocardiogram was made in supine and orthostatic postures, for 10 minutes in each position. Sequences of 256 RR intervals were analyzed through linear (spectral analysis low frequency in normalized units (LFnu) and high frequency in absolute units (HFabs)) and non-linear methods (symbolic analysis 0V% and 2UV%, Shannon entropy (SE), conditional entropy (normalized complexity index NCI)). Results: The NCI did not show difference among the evaluated groups in rest supine, however NCI presented reduced values in all 3 groups after orthostatic challenge. Except AFabs, other indices did not differ between groups at rest supine. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that there is no decrease of complexity on frailty syndrome, possibly because it already presents decreased values with the senescence. The postural change was unable to detect any impairment in HRV complexity associated with the frailty process.