[False and true hypertension in the aged subject. Diagnostic errors and potential solutions].

Arterial hypertension has the same definition in elderly people as in young adults. Epidemiologically, it has clearly been demonstrated that in the elderly it is a risk factor of morbidity and cardiovascular mortality. The international reference method for measuring blood pressure is by auscultation and mercury manometer. However, this indirect measurement is the source of many errors due to the material or the observer, or inherent in the method. A typical example of this is pseudohypertension in the elderly. Several solution are offered to improve the reliability of indirect blood pressure measurement, the most convincing one being the use of scientifically validated autonomous instruments relying on the oscillometry system. Ambulatory blood pressure measurement is interesting, being of diagnostic, therapeutic and probably prognostic value, but all this has to be confirmed in elderly subjects.