Abstract
Although both the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease increase dramatically with advancing age, aging and disease are not synonymous. Therefore, when studying the aging process in man, one must omit those changes in the elderly groups that, in reality, are due to the presence or development of disease This chapter will attempt to delineate those changes in the heart and peripheral vasculature at rest and during exercise that are thought to represent “normal” aging. While these changes in and of themselves, usually cause no disability, they do provide an altered substrate on which the specific cardiovascular diseases to be discussed in subsequent chapters are superimposed. The signs, symptoms, and clinical course of these pathologic processes may be modified significantly by the physiological aging of the cardiovascular system.
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Fleg, J.L., Gerstenblith, G., Lakatta, E.G. (1984). Pathophysiology of the Aging Heart and Circulation. In: Messerli, F.H. (eds) Cardiovascular Disease in the Elderly. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 31. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1815-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1815-7_2
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