Noninvasive evaluation of peripheral arterial disease in the geriatric patient.

A progressive increase in the incidence of peripheral arterial occlusive disease is being observed in today's steadily aging population. In recent years, a number of simple noninvasive vascular techniques have become available for the diagnosis of peripheral arterial occlusive disease. These techniques provide the physician with physiologic information about the patient's peripheral circulation which permits discrimination between complaints compatible with the aging process and those indicative of an underlying disease state. This article reviews the noninvasive vascular diagnostic techniques that the authors found useful in evaluating the geriatric patient. These include oculoplethysmography. Doppler ultrasound, photoplethysmography, arterial impedance plethysmography, and electromagnetic flowmetry.