Climacteric cardiovascular changes evaluated by heart rate variability and detrended fluctuation analysis

Abstract

Introduction: During climacteric, women experience physical and psychological changes due to declining ovarian estrogen. The cardiovascular system is one of those affected. However, there are not sufficient studies of the effects of the climacteric on heart function. The fluctuations of the heart rate are the most common way to analyze the changes in heart function. Materials and Methods: In this work, ten minutes of ECG signal at rest were recorded for a group of 57 healthy climacteric females. In this study, two methodologies were used to analyze the ECG signal: Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA). Results and Discussion: Heart rate variability and detrended fluctuation analysis can be used to monitor changes of cardiovascular system during the climacteric stages (pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal). Both methodologies are sensitive almost at the same level to cardiovascular changes observed during the peri- menopausal stage. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.