For patients
Who should be tested
There is a defined group where measuring vascular, autonomic and metabolic function is worth doing before anything has gone visibly wrong. It is broader than most people expect.
The risk group
Testing is aimed at four overlapping populations.
- Adults over 50 who carry a cardiovascular risk factor. One risk factor is enough. It does not have to be a diagnosis.
- Everyone over 70. Age alone qualifies, because the changes these assessments detect accumulate with time whether or not anything else is present.
- Anyone with high blood pressure. Hypertension damages small vessels and the autonomic control of blood pressure at the same time.
- Anyone carrying excess weight. Body composition, not the number on the scale, is what matters here.
- Anyone who smokes, or used to. Smoking is the single strongest modifiable risk factor for peripheral artery disease.
- Anyone with diabetes or prediabetes. Nerve and vessel changes begin before blood sugar readings look convincing.
Why age alone is on the list
Two of the assessments in the suite exist mainly because of what happens after 70. Peripheral artery disease prevalence rises steeply with age — in the wealthier countries surveyed it was estimated at about 5% of adults in their late forties and about 18% by the late eighties, measured by ankle-brachial index in a systematic review of community studies. Balance is the other. In a national survey of US adults aged 40 and over, 35.4% had measurable vestibular dysfunction, and those who also reported dizziness had twelve times the odds of falling.
Neither of those is something you notice in yourself gradually. Both are measurable in an hour.
Symptoms that move you up the list
You do not need symptoms to qualify. But if any of these are present, the case for measuring rather than waiting is stronger.
In the feet and hands
- Burning, tingling or numbness, worse at night
- Skin that has stopped sweating, or sweats oddly
- Cuts that heal slowly
On walking
- Cramping in the calves or thighs that stops with rest
- Cold feet, or one foot colder than the other
- Less distance than last year for the same effort
Systemically
- Lightheadedness on standing up
- Exercise intolerance out of proportion to fitness
- Fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep
- Unexplained changes in digestion or bladder habit
Who this is not aimed at
A healthy adult in their twenties with no risk factors is not the target. Nor is anyone in an acute emergency — chest pain, sudden weakness, a cold and painful limb, or a sudden change in vision or speech needs an emergency department, not an appointment. Call 911.
If you are a clinician: the same subject written for the person ordering the test is at selection criteria for clinicians.
Talk to someone about testing
Tell us what you are trying to find out and we will explain which Measura assessments answer that question, what each one involves, and how the results are reviewed with a clinician.
4477 Woodson Rd, Suite 201, St. Louis, MO 63134. Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Please do not send symptoms, diagnoses or images through a web form — a website form is not a secure medical channel. Call us with clinical detail.
Common questions
I feel fine. Is there any point?
That is the population this was designed for. The changes these assessments detect are silent for years, which is the reason to measure rather than wait for a symptom. Why the risk group is drawn this way.
My doctor already checks my blood pressure and cholesterol.
Those are important and they are not the same measurements. Blood pressure tells you the pressure; it does not tell you how stiff the vessel wall has become or whether the small nerve fibers are intact. What these assessments add.
Is there an age at which it stops being useful?
No, but the reason shifts. Under 60 the emphasis is on finding modifiable change early; over 75 it moves toward function, balance and fall risk. Dizziness and the risk of falling.
Do I need a referral?
References
- Fowkes FGR, Rudan D, Rudan I, et al. Comparison of global estimates of prevalence and risk factors for peripheral artery disease in 2000 and 2010: a systematic review and analysis. Lancet. 2013;382(9901):1329–1340. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61249-0
- Agrawal Y, Carey JP, Della Santina CC, Schubert MC, Minor LB. Disorders of balance and vestibular function in US adults: data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2001–2004. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2009;169(10):938–944. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2009.66
Medically reviewed by Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP, medical director of Measura. Last reviewed .