Emilija Bernotaitė¹, Lolita Nagytė¹

¹Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Academy of Medicine. Faculty of Medicine.

Background. Arterial hypertension (AH) is the most common cause of cardiovascular disease (CHD) in the world. It is commonly referred as a “silent killer” because it gradually damages the heart, blood vessels, and other organs without any apparent symptoms. Despite significant advances in the diagnosis and treatment of arterial hypertension, blood pressure (BP) is still not adequately controlled in many patients. Therefore, it should be remembered that the treatment of hypertension involves not only drug therapy but also lifestyle interventions. Aim: to select and analyse expert developed and universally accepted guidelines for the treatment of AH and to determine the most effective methods for the treatment of AH. Material and the methods: a review of the literature was conducted using the electronic medical database “PubMed” (MEDLINE), selecting publications which contains expert recommendations on the treatment of AH. Combination of the key terms “arterial hypertension”, “AH”; “treatment” and “guidelines” was used. 2018 ESC/ESH Guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension were also used. Conclusion: While medication is important, healthy way of life is also significant assuring optimal control of arterial hypertension. Lifestyle modifications, such as diet, restricted intake of alcohol, exercise and weight loss, reduced physiological stress and anxiety, can substantially reduce BP and, therefore, play an important role in controlling blood pressure. After evaluating clinical research data and oppinion of experts, who created the guidelines, it is recommended to prescribe drug combinations already at the beginning of AH treatment, since this leads to better drug usage, simpler drug usage regime, which causes long term results of hypertension control.

Keywords: arterial hypertension, treatment, guidelines.