Cardiovascular complications have been highly associated with arterial stiffness which results from aging and/or vascular disease. Reduced arterial elasticity, particularly at the aorta level, increases the left ventricle load. In this work, we studied the effects of localized stiffness on an aortic phantom with respect to its severity and position relative to an upstream proximal site. As expected, our results showed that the aortic hemodynamics were altered: the pulse pressure was increased, and the flow rate decreased. Moreover, the local proximal compliance was reduced as the stiffness was brought closer to the heart. However, the pulse wave velocity remained unchanged suggesting that global stiffness measuring approaches might not detect regional wall alterations
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