Exaggerated blood pressure variability is associated with memory impairment in very elderly patients

We investigated the association between working memory (WM) impairment and blood pressure variability (BPV) in very elderly patients. Japanese outpatients 80years who engaged in normal activities of daily living were the study cohort. WM function was evaluated by a simple visual WM test consisting of 3 figures. We considered the number of figures recalled by the patient his/her test score. We defined the patients with a score of 0 or 1 as those with WM impairment and those with scores of 2 or 3 as those without. To investigate the relative risk of WM impairment, we evaluated each patient's 24hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (SBP) and its weighted standard deviation (SDSBP), office SBP, and the visit-to-visit SDSBP during the 1year period from the patient's enrollment. A total of 66 patients (mean 84 +/- 3.6years) showed WM impairment, and 431 patients (mean 83 +/- 3.1years) showed no WM impairment. There were no significant differences in 24hour ambulatory SBP or office SBP between these two groups. However, the WM impairment patients showed significantly higher weighted SDSBP and visit-to-visit SDSBP values compared to the no-impairment group even after adjusting for age. Among these 80-year-old patients, those with the highest quartile of both weighted SDSBP (21.4mmHg) and visit-to-visit SDSBP (14.5mmHg) showed the highest relative risk (odds ratio 3.52, 95% confidence interval 1.42-8.72) for WM impairment. Exaggerated blood pressure variability parameters were significantly associated with working memory impairment in very elderly individuals.