Risk stratification of older patients.

Cardiovascular disease is a growing global health threat due in part to demographic shifts, in particular the growing elderly population in which cardiovascular disease is highly likely to develop. Older individuals have numerous coexisting conditions that contribute to increased risk for morbidity and mortality. In the past, physicians primarily used diastolic blood pressure (BP) as the indicator for measuring relative risk. However, since the early 1970s observational studies have found that systolic BP rather than diastolic BP is a better predictor of cardiovascular events, particularly in the older population. The Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC-VI) recommended specific goals for the treatment of hypertensive patients. Specifically, JNC-VI reinforced the notion of more aggressive BP goals for patients at the greatest risk for an event. The approach to patients who are not at goal is different from earlier guidelines. Therapy is now aimed at building therapeutic regimens. Currently, there are five classes of agents that have been shown to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with cardiovascular and renal disease: diuretics, beta-blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, calcium antagonists, and angiotensin receptor blockers. If a patient is not at goal and there is no response to an agent from one of these classes or troublesome side effects develop, then and only then should that drug be stopped and a different one used. Otherwise, a multidrug regimen is constructed and additional agents added in logical fashion. A majority of patients with higher risk can attain control at the specified BP goal safely and effectively by using a combination of agents.