Deans' stroke musings: Measure of Pulse Rate Can Predict Faster Cognitive Decline in Older Adults

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Measure of Pulse Rate Can Predict Faster Cognitive Decline in Older Adults

Precisely how will your competent? doctor use this to ENSURE YOU HAVE NO COGNITIVE DECLINE FROM YOUR STROKE?

Measure of Pulse Rate Can Predict Faster Cognitive Decline in Older Adults

The complexity of pulse rate is associated with longitudinal cognitive decline in older adults, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Heart rate complexity is a hallmark of healthy physiology,” said senior author Peng Li, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Our hearts must balance between spontaneity and adaptability, incorporating internal needs and external stressors.”

The study used data from 503 participants (mean age 82 years; 76% female) in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. The researchers analysed overnight pulse oximetry data (Itamar WatchPAT 300 device), and used a previously established distribution entropy algorithm to extract the complexity of pulse rate as a proxy for subclinical cardiovascular function.

Participants completed a standardised cognitive test battery during the same visit of pulse oximetry and at least 1 follow‐up visit. Linear mixed‐effects models were conducted to test whether distribution entropy is associated with longitudinal changes in global cognition and separately, in 5 cognitive domains.

Results showed that greater complexity in pulse rate at baseline was associated with a slower decline in global cognition. The effect of 1‐standard deviation increase in distribution complexity was equivalent to being approximately 3 years younger.

No associations were observed between conventional time‐ or frequency‐domain pulse rate variability measures and cognitive changes.

The researchers plan to investigate whether pulse rate complexity can predict development of dementia, which would make it useful for identifying people at an early stage who might benefit from therapeutic interventions.

“The findings underscore the usefulness of our approach as a noninvasive measure for how flexible the heart is in responding to nervous system cues,” said lead author Chenlu Gao, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital. “It is suitable for future studies aimed at understanding the interplay between heart health and cognitive aging.”

Reference: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.125.041448

SOURCE: Mass General Brigham