Respiratory muscle strength also decreases with ageing, and is strongly correlated with nutritional status and cardiac index.
Carbon monoxide transfer decreases with age, reflecting mainly a loss of surface area. In spite of these changes, the respiratory system remains capable of maintaining adequate gas exchange at rest and during exertion during the entire lifespan, with only a slight decrease in arterial oxygen tension, and no significant change in arterial carbon ...
Ageing tends to diminish the reserve of the respiratory system in cases of acute disease. Decreased sensitivity of respiratory centres to hypoxia or hypercapnia results in a diminished ventilatory response in cases of heart failure, infection or aggravated airway obstruction.
Slight repeated movements and vascular turgescence of the lower limbs are presumed to influence the pulse-rate through afferent impulses. Not only pulse-rate, but also blood-pressure adjustments in the standing position, are influenced by afferent impulses from the lower limbs.
The standing-lying difference equals the combined standing-sitting and sitting-lying differences. While the latter is nil, when the carotid sinus reflex is not active, the standing-lying and the standing-sitting differences are equal. These often vary in parallel fashion.
As the effects are evidently not mediated through changes in general (aortic) blood-pressure, they may be assumed to depend on afferent impulses especially related to the position of the thighs, and probably originating from some part of the vascular apparatus under the influence of the hydrostatic factor.