Noninvasive assessment of age-related changes in vascular elasticity and pulse wave velocity spectrum

Pulse wave velocity has been widely used in the clinical assessment of the elastic properties of arteries. The spectral content of the apparent phase velocity (c_app), however, contains considerably more information of vascular behavior than pulse wave velocity alone. The authors investigated the progressive changes in arterial elasticity and wave reflection during normal aging by obtaining c_app from the carotid artery to the radial artery. Results show that with increasing age, the overall magnitude of c_app increases and exhibits greater oscillations at higher frequencies. Both of these findings are associated with increased wave reflections