Authors:
Saturnino Suárez Ortega*, Noel Lorenzo Villalba and Saray Hernández Valiente
Affiliation(s):
Department of Internal Medicine, Internal Medicine. Las Palmas University, Gran Canaria, Spain
Dates:
Received: 29 September, 2016; Accepted: 20 February, 2016; Published: 22 February, 2016
*Corresponding author:
Saturnino Suárez Ortega. Urbanización El Arco, 16. La Atalaya. 35307 Santa Brígida. Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain, Tel: 928-430263. E-mail: @
Citation:
Ortega SS, Villalba NL, Valiente SH (2016) Ambulatory Monitoring of Blood Pressure in Occupational Hypertension. Arch Community Med Public Health 2(1): 008-008. DOI: 10.17352/2455-5479.000007
Copyright:
© 2016 Ortega SS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Clinical Image

Stress is considered to have a strong impact on changes in blood pressure through overproduction of catecholamines during working hours [1,2].

We are presenting the graphical behavior of blood pressure of two patients. In both cases hypertension is present exclusively during working hours. The first graphic correspond to a 39 year old nurse working 7 hours (Figure 1) and the second one, to a 46 year old engineer working from 8:00 am to 22:00 pm. In the second case, this period also included a two hour-lunch break and nap break.

  1. Figure 1:
    The graphic shows the presence of hypertension only during the 7 hours period the patient was working (from 8:00 to 15:00 pm).


In the second case, blood pressure remained high during working hours and only went down during lunch time and nap time (Figure 2). Both patients display intellectual work.

  1. Figure 2:
    The graphic shows the presence of hypertension during a long working day (8:00 am-9:00 pm) with only a slightly decrease at lunch time and nap time.


This pathophysiological situation known as masked hypertension [3] and which seems to increase during periods of economic crisis, is called Occupational Hypertension and correlates to job stress [4].

Blood pressure monitoring was assessed using Cardiorisc Project [5], a protocol elaborated by the Spanish Society of Hypertension. Even low percentages of blood pressure levels when monitoring, are considered to be normal owing to the wide variability of blood pressure, it is not normal that all readings are high during working hours as shown in both graphics.

Normal blood pressure values are:

1. At consultation: <140/90 mmHg

2. Blood pressure ambulatory monitoring: Average ≤130/80 mmHg; waking ≤135/85 mmHg

3. During sleep: ≤120/75 mm/Hg.


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