DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2019.v07i05.008

Pages: 1711-1715

In heart failure, it has been recognized that the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is activated, with imbalance of its activity leading to vagal interactions. Measuring vagal response as a daily practice in heart failure patients would be challenging. The aim of this study is to report the vagal response.
We conducted a prospective study including a group of symptomatic cardiac failure subjects with ejection fraction EF <40% with sinus rhythm, able to perform the deep breathing and valsalva test. All of them had clinical examination, ECG, echocardiography and evaluation of autonomic nervous system function. The results obtained were analyzed using SPSS software. We included 100 patients; their mean age was 54 years. The exploration of the autonomic nervous system in our patients was based essentially on two tests which are the deep breathing and the Valsalva maneuver. The results showed a vagal deficit among 80% of our patients with deep breathig test and 69% with the Valsalva maneuver. This results objectived a significant vagal deficiency response. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that vagal stimulation has beneficial effects on heart failure patients.