With few exceptions, such as testing pupillary reactions and examination of the skin for abnormalities of color and sweating, the neurologist tends to be casual in evaluating the function of the autonomic nervous system. Nonetheless, several simple but informative tests can be used to confirm one’s clinical impressions and to elicit abnormalities of autonomic function that may aid in diagnosis. For the detection of certain disease, it is almost imperative that blood pressure be evaluated to detect a drop with change in body position from lying or sitting, to standing.
A combination of tests is usually necessary, because certain ones are particularly sensitive to abnormalities of sympathetic function and others to parasympathetic or baroreceptor afferent function. These are described later and are summarized in Table 25-1. A scheme for the examination of pupillary abnormalities was presented in Fig. 13-11.
Testing of Blood Pressure and Heart Rate
These are among the simplest and most important tests of autonomic function and most laboratories have automated techniques to quantitate them. McLeod and Tuck state that in changing from the recumbent to the standing position, a fall of more than 30 mm Hg systolic and 15 mm Hg diastolic is abnormal; others give figures of 20 and 10 mm Hg. They caution that the arm on which the cuff is placed must be held horizontally when standing, so that the decline in arm pressure will not be obscured by the added hydrostatic pressure. As emphasized in Chap. 17 on syncope, the determination of blood pressure in orthostatic testing is ideally done by having the patient remain supine for as long as it is practical before testing, and shifting from a supine to standing position, without the interposition of sitting. Moreover, blood pressure is most informative if measured immediately after standing and again at approximately 1 and 3 min. The expected response is a momentary and slight increase in pressure that is usually not detected with a manual blood pressure cuff, followed by a slight drop within seconds of standing, and then a slow recovery during the first minute. Persistent hypotension at 1 min indicates sympathetic adrenergic failure and the later measurement affirms this if blood pressure fails to recover or continues to decline (Fig. 25-5).
The main cause of an orthostatic drop in blood pressure is, of course, hypovolemia. In the context of recurrent fainting, however, an excessive drop reflects inadequate sympathetic vasoconstrictor activity. The use of a tilt table, as described in “Tilt-Table Testing” in Chap. 17 and further on, is an additional means of inducing orthostatic changes and also elicits reflex fainting in patients prone to syncope from an oversensitive cardiac reflex, that is, one that produces vasodilatation (neurocardiogenic syncope). In response to the induced drop in blood pressure, the heart rate (mainly under vagal control) normally increases. The failure of the heart rate to rise in response to the drop in blood pressure with standing is the simplest bedside indicator of vagal nerve dysfunction. Neurally mediated syncope may show one of three initial patterns with testing on a tilt table: a vasodepressor response alone (vasodepressor syncope), a combined bradycardic and hypotensive response (mixed syncope), and solely bradycardia (cardiovagal syncope) (Fig. 25-6). The mixed syncope is the most common form of neurally mediated syncope. The tilt table allows differentiation among these or, more often, clarifies the order in which the events occur.