Cardio-Ankle Vascular Index: Test-Retest Reliability and Agreement in People With Stroke.
Lily Y W Ho, Claudia K Y Lai, Shamay S M Ng
PMID 39508121WHAT IT FOUND
A simple cuff test of arterial stiffness gave consistent results when repeated in stroke survivors.
Stiffness was higher on the paretic side and linked with fatigue and poorer sleep.
Key findings
01CAVI test-retest reliability ranged from 0.77 to 0.86, agreement was good, and the minimal detectable change was 1.15 to 1.29.
02CAVI values were higher on the paretic side than the non-paretic side at all three time points.
03CAVI values correlated with fatigue on both sides and with sleep quality on the paretic side.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 60 of the 67 participants completed the retest, so the 7-day reliability result is based on fewer people than the same-day result. Participants were recruited from non-governmental social centers, so they may have been more active than other stroke survivors, such as home-care patients. Possible confounders, including activity level, muscle mass, and medications such as anti-hypertensives, were not assessed. CAVI was not compared with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, the gold-standard measure of arterial stiffness. The study did not establish a minimal clinically important difference, so it is unclear which CAVI changes matter to patients. The correlations with fatigue and sleep quality were cross-sectional, so they do not show that arterial stiffness causes either problem.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that CAVI can diagnose the cause of post-stroke fatigue or that a small change in CAVI means clinical improvement. The study did not test cause, did not compare CAVI with the gold-standard measure, and did not establish a minimal clinically important difference.