Voluntary attention in the ontogenesis of adolescents with essential hypertension

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to study the features of voluntary attention ontogenesis in adolescents with essential hypertension (EH) in age-gender aspects. Materials and methods. We examined 98 adolescents with EH aged 10-18 years (59 males and 39 females). EH was diagnosed with 24-h ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring using monitor Oscar 2 for OXFORD Medilog Prima. Ninety-seven healthy age- and gender-matched individuals were controls. All participants were divided into 3 age groups (10-12 years, 13-15 years and 16-18 years old). All children underwent a neuropsychological examination with the use of standard tests. All the differences were considered significant at p < 0.05. Results. There were no statistically significant differences in voluntary attention parameters in adolescents 10-12 years old in both the main and the control group. However, hypertensive adolescents aged 13-15 years had significantly decreased voluntary attention level in comparison with age-matched individuals in controls. Adolescents in this group spent much more time on testing and admitted a significant number of errors. In the group of older adolescents (16-18 years), the differences between the main and the control group continued to increase. Hypertensive girls have a tendency with better voluntary attention parameters than hypertensive boys. When comparing the tests results between the age groups of hypertensive patients, a tendency to their deterioration as the disease progresses is noted. Conclusion. The results of this study indicate the formation of a rigid pathological functional brain system in the ontogenesis in hypertensive adolescents with the development of brain structures decompensation and voluntary attention impairment.