A rapid non-invasive blood pressure measurement method for discrete value and full wave form determination. Schnall, Robert P, Noam Gavriely, Shlomo Lewkowicz, and Yoram Palti. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
APStracts 2:0442A, 1995.
A new method for the non-invasive measurement of systemic arterial blood pressure (BP) and its validation are described. The method combines photo-plethysmography of the radial artery with E.C.G. - gated, rapid release (600 mm Hg/sec) of occluding counter-pressure. The release of the counter-pressure is precisely timed with the E.C.G. signal, while photo-plethysmographic detection of the arterial refilling is used to facilitate rapid, momentary, BP measurements. Direct photo-plethysmography of the radial artery during its reloading provides a very clear indication of the opening pressure. The complete pressure waveform is reconstructed from multiple repetitions of the BP measurement cycle at successively increasing time intervals relative to the E.C.G. signal. In alternative mode of operation, the systolic and diastolic values are rapidly measured (i.e. within 2-4 cardiac cycles), at the peak and trough of the BP wave. Blood pressure measurements by this new method were compared to sphygmomanometric measurements in 26 randomly selected subjects

Received 18 April 1995; accepted in final form 29 August 1995.
APS Manuscript Number A145-5.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 6 November 95