What factors limit the value of stress testing in older adults?
Several factors limit the value of stress testing in older adults, including physiological changes such as alterations in cardiac output, muscle loss, and deconditioning, neuropathies, lung disease, and degenerative joint disease. These changes make stress testing more difficult and many elderly patients are unable to respond to graded increases in workload as required by standard exercise ECG protocols. In addition, baseline ECG changes, arrhythmias, and LV hypertrophy, which are more common in older adults, also limit the value of stress testing.