The association of arithmetic calculation and noise as a mental stressor in the functional evaluation of recent myocardial infarction

: To evaluate the possible augmented power of mental arithmetic when given to the subjects during noise, 12 postinfarct patients underwent mental arithmetic in the standard way and then the same stressor with a white noise: mental arithmetic significantly increased (p less than 0.05) the heart rate, while mental arithmetic and white noise significantly increased (p less than 0.05) heart rate, systolic and mean blood pressure, as well as skin conductance. Nevertheless, the increments in heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductance induced by the two different ways of stressing did not significantly differ. Thus, adding white noise to mental arithmetic does not seem to be useful to increase the power of mental arithmetic in order to elicit cardiovascular responses.