Ventricular compliance and ageing.

Compliance of the right ventricle has been studied in 29 aged subjects who were free from any overt heart failure. The observations indicate that a loss of ventricular compliance results, in aged subjects, in an impairment of diastolic filling, which itself is responsible for a reduction in cardiac output. However, there appears to be no relationship between ventricular compliance and systolic performance but the failure to find any such relation may be due to a contractile adaptation in subjects having a low ventricular compliance.