Improvement in Heart Rate Variability Without Treatment: A Case Study

John Hart DC MHSc^{1, 2,}

¹Private chiropractic practice, Greenville, South Carolina, USA

²Adjunct Faculty, Purdue University Global, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

Cite this paper:
John Hart DC MHSc. Improvement in Heart Rate Variability Without Treatment: A Case Study. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neurology. 2024; 10(1):1-4. doi: 10.12691/ijcen-10-1-1

Abstract

Less health care may be better health care. Health care based on clinical testing is a logical approach, but if there is a “bad” result it may be only temporary. The clinician would not know about this though unless there is follow-up testing. To study the notion that a clinical test finding may improve over time, without any treatment, the author measured his autonomic nervous system with heart rate variability on 30 different days, twice per day to see how well the paired readings might agree. Results showed substantial improvement in the second reading compared to the first, and this difference was statistically significant (p < 0.0001) with a large effect size (of 2.0). This finding is an example of why it may be prudent to perform follow-up testing prior to clinical decision-making to avoid the problem of unnecessary treatment.

Keywords:
Heart rate variability spontaneous improvement unnecessary treatment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Grady D, Redberg RF. Less Is More: How Less Health Care Can Result in Better Health. Archives of Internal Medicine 2010; 170(9): 749–750.
[2]	Holmes OW. The young practitioner. A Valedictory Address delivered to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue Hospital College, March 2, 1871. The Literature Network. Available at: https:// www.online-literature.com/ oliver-holmes/medical-essays/7/.
[3]	Altini M. Heart rate variability using the phone’s camera. Available at: https:// www.marcoaltini.com/ blog/heart-rate-variability-using-the-phones-camera.
[4]	Plews DJ, Scott B, Altini M, Wood M, Kilding AE, Laursen PB. Comparison of heart rate variability recording with smart phone photoplethysmographic Polar H7 chest strap and electrocardiogram methods. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance 2017; 12(10)1-17.
[5]	Urbank D, Podgórski M, Mazur G. Heart rate variability – clinical significance. Family Medicine & Primary Care Review 2018; 20(1): 87–90.
[6]	Devore J, Peck R. Statistics: the exploration and analysis of data. 4th ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Duxbury; 2001: 410.
[7]	Acock AC. A gentle introduction to Stata (3rd Edition). College Station, TX; Stata Press. 2010: 162.
[8]	Hart J. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing: A chiropractic case study. Archives of Neurology & Neuroscience 2021; 9(4). Available at: .