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OBJECTIVES To identify the top priority areas for research to optimize pharmacotherapy in older adults with cardiovascular disease (CVD). DESIGN Consensus meeting. SETTING Multidisciplinary workshop supported by the National Institute on Aging, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Geriatrics Society, February 6–7, 2017. PARTICIPANTS Leaders in the Cardiology and Geriatrics communities, (officers in professional societies, journal editors, clinical trialists, Division chiefs), representatives from the NIA; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; Food and Drug Administration; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine, Patient‐Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, pharmaceutical industry, and trainees and early career faculty with interests in geriatric cardiology. MEASUREMENTS Summary of workshop proceedings and recommendations. RESULTS To better align older adults’ healthcare preferences with their care, research is needed to improve skills in patient engagement and communication. Similarly, to coordinate and meet the needs of older adults with multiple comorbidities encountering multiple healthcare providers and systems, systems and disciplines must be integrated. The lack of data from efficacy trials of CVD medications relevant to the majority of older adults creates uncertainty in determining the risks and benefits of many CVD therapies; thus, developing evidence‐based guidelines for older adults with CVD is a top research priority. Polypharmacy and medication nonadherence lead to poor outcomes in older people, making research on appropriate prescribing and deprescribing to reduce polypharmacy and methods to improve adherence to beneficial therapies a priority. CONCLUSION The needs and circumstances of older adults with CVD differ from those that the current medical system has been designed to meet. Optimizing pharmacotherapy in older adults will require new data from traditional and pragmatic research to determine optimal CVD therapy, reduce polypharmacy, increase adherence, and meet person‐centered goals. Better integration of the multiple systems and disciplines involved in the care of older adults will be essential to implement and disseminate best practices. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:371–380, 2019.

Autonomic support of blood pressure increases with age in humans. Large differences exist in the dose of trimethaphan (TMP) required for ganglionic blockade in young and older women. We asked whether differences in the dose of TMP required to achieve ganglionic blockade are because of differences in the relative contributions of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system in control of blood pressure with age. Muscle sympathetic nerve activity (microneurography, peroneal nerve), heart rate (HR), and blood pressure were recorded before and during incremental doses of TMP camsylate until ganglionic blockade was achieved (absence of muscle sympathetic nerve activity and <5-bpm increase in HR during a valsalva maneuver; final TMP dose, 1–7 mg/min). HR variability was analyzed from the ECG waveform (WinCPRS). The dose of TMP required to achieve ganglionic blockade is positively related to basal HR variability, where women with high HR variability require a higher dose of TMP to achieve ganglionic blockade. In contrast, baseline muscle sympathetic nerve activity is inversely related with the dose of TMP required to achieve ganglionic blockade, such that women with high basal muscle sympathetic nerve activity required a lower dose of TMP. As such, the change in HR with ganglionic blockade was positively related, and the change in mean arterial pressure was inversely related, with the dose of TMP required to achieve ganglionic blockade. These data suggest loss of parasympathetic tone and increased sympathetic tone with aging contribute to the increase in blood pressure with age in women and dictate the dose of TMP that is necessary to achieve ganglionic blockade.

Medical compression garments are used to treat lymphatic disorders or conditions of poor venous return (e.g. orthostatic intolerance). Conventional compression garments, namely elastic compression sleeves and inflatable compression systems, may aid in relief of these conditions but are also limited in usability. Fixed levels of compression in elastic materials may induce challenges in donning/doffing, complicating patient compliance [1]. Compression levels in inflatable systems are customizable, but these garments are also bulky and require a tethered inflation source [2]. We are interested in developing easy-to-don/-doff compression garments using shape memory alloy (SMA) coil actuators that contract with heat from an applied current which can be wrapped around the body to apply compressive forces. More specifically, we use a spring coil formation as described by Holschuh et al. [3]. Further developed in the Wearable Technology Lab at the University of Minnesota, our current SMA compression garment (SMA-CG) design improves upon the work of Duvall et al. [4] presented in previous year’s (2017) Design of Medical Devices Conference, representing a year’s evolution in active compression garment design that integrate actuators made with SMA.

Key PointsThe mechanisms affecting recruitment patterns of postganglionic sympathetic nerves remain unclear. The divergent and convergent preganglionic innervation patterns of postganglionic neurons and the presence of differently sized postganglionic nerves suggest that the ganglia may participate in modifying the discharge patterns of single sympathetic postganglionic neurons innervating the skeletal muscle circulation.Whether the ganglia affect the ordered behaviour of varying sized postganglionic sympathetic neurons in humans has not been studied.Trimethaphan infusion produced an ordered pattern of action potential (AP) de‐recruitment whereby the firing of larger, low probability APs present at baseline was abolished first, followed by progressive decreased probability of smaller APs. Although integrated sympathetic bursts were no longer detected after several minutes of trimethaphan, firing of the smallest APs was detected.These data suggest the ganglia affect the distribution of firing probabilities exhibited by differently sized sympathetic neurons.The ganglia may contribute to sympathetic neural emission patterns involved in homeostatic regulation.AbstractDo the ganglia contribute to the ordered behaviour of postganglionic neuronal discharge within the sympathetic nervous system? To further understand the functional organization of the sympathetic nervous system we employed the microneurographic approach to record muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and a continuous wavelet transform to study postganglionic action potential (AP) behaviour during nicotinic blockade at the ganglia (trimethaphan camsylate, 1–7 mg min−1) in seven females (37 ± 5 years). Trimethaphan elicited a progressive reduction in sympathetic outflow characterized by fewer integrated bursts with decaying amplitude. Underlying trimethaphan‐mediated attenuations in integrated MSNA were reductions in AP incidence (186 ± 101 to 29 ± 31 AP (100 beats)−1) and AP content per integrated burst (7 ± 2 to 3 ± 1 APs burst−1) (bothP <0.01) in the final minute of detectable bursting activity in the trimethaphan condition, compared to baseline. We observed an ordered de‐recruitment of larger to smaller AP clusters active at baseline (14 ± 3 to 8 ± 2 active AP clusters,P <0.01). Following cessation of integrated bursts in the trimethaphan condition, the smallest 6 ± 2 sympathetic AP clusters persisted to fire in an asynchronous pattern (49 ± 41 AP (100 beats)−1) in all participants. Valsalva's manoeuvre did not increase the incidence of these persistent APs (60 ± 42 AP (100 beats)−1,P = 0.52), or recruit any larger APs in six of seven participants (6 ± 1 total AP clusters,P = 0.30). These data suggest that the ganglia participate in the ordered recruitment of differently sized postganglionic sympathetic nerves.

Airway luminal area is the major determinant of resistance to airflow in the tracheobronchial tree. Women may have smaller central conducting airways than men; however, previous evidence is confounded by an indirect assessment of airway geometry and by subjects with prior smoking history. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of sex on airway size in healthy nonsmokers. Using low-dose high-resolution computed tomography, we retrospectively assessed airway luminal area in healthy men ( n = 51) and women ( n = 73) of varying ages (19–86 yr). Subjects with a positive smoking history, cardiopulmonary disease, or a body mass index > 40 kg/m2 were excluded. Luminal areas of the trachea, right and left main bronchus, bronchus intermediate, left and right upper lobes, and the left lower lobe were analyzed at three discrete points. The luminal areas of the conducting airways were ~26%–35% smaller in women. The trachea had the largest differences in luminal area between men and women (298 ± 47 vs. 195 ± 28 mm2 or 35% smaller for men and women, respectively), whereas the left lower lobe had the smallest differences (57 ± 15 vs. 42 ± 9 mm2 or 26% smaller for men and women, respectively). When a subset of subjects was matched for height, the sex differences in airway luminal area persisted, with women being ~20%–30% smaller. With all subjects, there were modest relationships between height and airway luminal area ( r = 0.73–0.53, P < 0.05). Although there was considerable overlap between sexes, the luminal areas of the large conducting airways were smaller in healthy women than in men. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Previous evidence for sex differences in airway size has been confounded by indirect measures and/or cohorts with significant smoking histories or pathologies. We found that central airways in healthy women were significantly smaller (~26%–35%) than men. The significant sex-difference in airway size was attenuated (20%–30% smaller) but preserved in a subset of subjects matched for height. Over a range of ages, healthy women have smaller central airways than men.

The increase in interstitial potassium (K+) during muscle contractions is thought to be a vasodilatory signal that contributes to exercise hyperemia. To determine the role of extracellular K+in exercise hyperemia, we perfused skeletal muscle with K+before contractions, such that the effect of any endogenously-released K+would be minimized. We tested the hypothesis that local, intra-arterial infusion of potassium chloride (KCl) at rest would impair vasodilation in response to subsequent rhythmic handgrip exercise in humans. In 11 young adults, we determined forearm blood flow (FBF) (Doppler ultrasound) and forearm vascular conductance (FVC) (FBF/mean arterial pressure) during 4 min of rhythmic handgrip exercise at 10% of maximal voluntary contraction during 1) control conditions, 2) infusion of KCl before the initiation of exercise, and 3) infusion of sodium nitroprusside (SNP) as a control vasodilator. Infusion of KCl or SNP elevated resting FVC similarly before the onset of exercise (control: 39 ± 6 vs. KCl: 81 ± 12 and SNP: 82 ± 13 ml·min−1·100 mmHg−1; both P < 0.05 vs. control). Infusion of KCl at rest diminished the hyperemic (ΔFBF) and vasodilatory (ΔFVC) response to subsequent exercise by 22 ± 5% and 30 ± 5%, respectively (both P < 0.05 vs. control), whereas SNP did not affect the change in FBF ( P = 0.74 vs. control) or FVC ( P = 0.61 vs. control) from rest to steady-state exercise. These findings implicate the K+ion as an essential vasodilator substance contributing to exercise hyperemia in humans.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Our findings support a significant and obligatory role for potassium signaling in the local vasodilatory and hyperemic response to exercise in humans.

Some individuals show little or no increase in maximal oxygen consumption (V˙O 2max ) in response to training programs consistent with public health guidelines. However, results from studies using more intense programs challenge the concept that some humans have limited trainability. We explore the implications of these divergent observations on the biology of trainability and propose a new set of twin studies to explore them.