Authors : Sheena
DOI : 10.18231/2394-2126.2019.0013
Volume : 6
Issue : 1
Year : 2019
Page No : 53-56
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic debilitating disorder affecting the synovial joints with higher prevalence in females. Extra articular manifestations are seen in around 40% of patients with RA. The nervous system faces the brunt of RA. The autonomic nervous system imbalance leads to RA associated cardiac morbidity and mortality. Cardiac dysfunction is due to reduction in heart rate variability (HRV). HRV testing assesses sympathovagal balance and is an easily reproducible method of testing the cardiac autonomic system.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted using 30 female patients and compared to 30 age & sex matched healthy volunteers. The participants were subjected to short term HRV recording using Multichannel Physiopac- PP8. Data was transferred to Kubios HRV version 2.0. The time domain variables including SDNN, RMSSD, mean RR and pNN50 were derived. Frequency domain variables corresponding to the parasympathetic and sympathetic activity were also assessed. Statistical analysis carried out using SPSS software 18.0. p values < 0>
Results: The statistical analysis show significance of NN50 and pNN50 among the time domain variables. The frequency domain variables VLF power %, LF power n.u, HF power ms2, HF power %, HF power n.u and LF/HF ratio were significant.
Conclusion: HRV analysis proves to be an easy, non-invasive, cost effective, reproducible and reliable tool for prediction of cardiac events. This tool will help the clinician to predict and fine tune treatment protocols for RA.
Keywords: Frequency domain, Short term heart rate variability, Spectral analysis, Sympathovagal balance, Time domain.