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Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

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Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#41

Post by caddemon »

everly wrote: post #37
blhack wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be specific about what you're trying to get at here? I don't understand why you think there is a difference between taking a health reading at your doctors office and having it included in your patient chart, or taking a reading at your house and having that included in your patient chart. I'm wondering if I'm missing something that is just being unsaid.

I think they are just saying the data is more likely to be secure if it is recorded at your doctor's office, which seems reasonable to me. Let's say it is a blood pressure reading taken by your Fitbit and uploaded to Google's servers. That data is not subject to HIPAA regulations. When your doctor takes your blood pressure and records it in your chart, it is subject to those regulations (as you say, it would be wildl…

There are downsides to this too though. I wanted a second opinion on an EEG, and after some hassle getting the original office to mail a disk (the only way they can transfer it), the new doctor said they can't view it because they use different software at their hospital for EEGs. These are two well ranked US hospitals, and EEG is a fairly common procedure.

Perhaps this is not an inherent downside to the data security, but it's a reality with the current medical system and regulation does play a part in how we got here. And there is no financial incentive for hospitals to fix these sort of issues, in fact there is a disincentive (I'm doing another EEG now...). So I just don't see how it gets fixed without some outside disruption.

It may not be a popular opinion on HN but I'm much more concerned with having access to my own medical information than how secure it is.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#42

Post by ggm »

irjustin wrote: post #35
wikibob wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, no offense intended: what is your level of fitness and BMI?

None at all. Being ~5'9" & 135 lbs, my back-of-the-napkin BMI is ~20. Fitness is pretty low these days given COVID, but I used to be quite fit (former Fitness company). That didn't really move my BP much. My biggest levers for BP are salt intake and work stress. Currently a co-founder so work stress is rather high handled with a bit of mitigation practices like meditation, but definitely not enough. Overall I'm on bo…

140/100 isn't going to call time on you tomorrow. There are people on that who go rolling along for years. I'm sure neither you nor your GP like this rating but its important not to catastrophise. If you have some specific co-morbidity that might be different: e.g. leaky blood vessels in the brain or atherosclerosis.

Not a GP, not giving advice.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#43

Post by baxtr »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #10
blhack wrote: post #8

There is a conference in Germany every year called medica. If you are interested in medical devices, I highly recommend going there and checking it out. It's an absolutely MASSIVE grounds with THOUSANDS of vendors showing everything from MRI machines to boroscopes, ambulance equipment...anything related to the medical field. Something which absolutely surprised me when I was there a few years ago was the amount of Io…

> and TONS of platforms wanted to warehouse this data. My coworker and I were there looking for exactly those sorts of things, and it was great to see so much. As I read your comment, I had a growing expectation that you were about to express horror at the mass gathering and warehousing of individuals' health data. I was very surprised when you expressed such excitement at the prospect.

If you acknowledge the threats, you should acknowledge the opportunities as well. Expressing "horror" every time data is mentioned in connection with health data is a very one-sided reflex. Surely, there are challenges, but why not solve them?

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#44

Post by riffraff »

irjustin wrote: post #29

I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy (all other vitals normal, HBP runs in family). All this to say, I hate measuring my BP and follow this space closely. It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day and I have to largely stop what I'm doing. I would gi…

> It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day

10 minutes sounds like a lot, I have a pretty common OMRON automatic pressure measuring device[0], and it takes about a minute to do the actual measuring, plus, say, another two to take off my sweater and put it back on.

I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you?

EDIT: have you tried meditation? As a fellow person with genetic disposition for HBP, it was somewhat helpful for me, when I could do it regularly.

[0] something like this, but older https://omronhealthcare.com/products/5-series-wireless-upper...

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#45

Post by [deleted] »

blhack wrote: post #27
sm4rk0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In real time and willing and able to sell it to whomever bids more?

Well yes in some cases it is in "real time", but do you know of doctors offices caught selling health data? That seems wildly unethical, and also very illegal. I'd imagine anybody caught doing that would be in jail.

[deleted]

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#46

Post by tzs »

irjustin wrote: post #29

I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy (all other vitals normal, HBP runs in family). All this to say, I hate measuring my BP and follow this space closely. It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day and I have to largely stop what I'm doing. I would gi…

Have you looked at wrist blood pressure meters? Mine takes about 30 seconds.

Wrist usually gives a higher reading than upper arm, but if you use both for a while to get a good idea of what is good on the wrist one you should be able to do most of your daily monitoring by wrist, only needing to do arm when wrist is unexpectedly off.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#47

Post by inglor_cz »

irjustin wrote: post #29

I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy (all other vitals normal, HBP runs in family). All this to say, I hate measuring my BP and follow this space closely. It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day and I have to largely stop what I'm doing. I would gi…

I got rid of HBP by intermittent fasting, but if your BMI is 20, that is not a method suitable for you.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#48

Post by sm4rk0 »

blhack wrote: post #34
sm4rk0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that your data is safer with a doctor's office then with a "platform": > And while you might assume that this information is legally protected the same way your hospital and medical records are, that’s not necessarily the case. https://www.consumerreports.org/health-privacy/are-health-ap...

Can you be specific about what you're trying to get at here? I don't understand why you think there is a difference between taking a health reading at your doctors office and having it included in your patient chart, or taking a reading at your house and having that included in your patient chart. I'm wondering if I'm missing something that is just being unsaid.

Maybe I misunderstood you. I thought your point is that it doesn't matter if a third-party platform has patient's data because their doctor's office already has it.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#49

Post by russholmes »

irjustin wrote: post #35
wikibob wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, no offense intended: what is your level of fitness and BMI?

None at all. Being ~5'9" & 135 lbs, my back-of-the-napkin BMI is ~20. Fitness is pretty low these days given COVID, but I used to be quite fit (former Fitness company). That didn't really move my BP much. My biggest levers for BP are salt intake and work stress. Currently a co-founder so work stress is rather high handled with a bit of mitigation practices like meditation, but definitely not enough. Overall I'm on bo…

A significant minority are quite sensitive to salt. I fixed my high blood pressure by reducing salt intake. I got it down to hunter-gather levels - less than 1 g per day and combined with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for potassium. It took a week before I started to notice my BP falling. Came down from 135/85 to 115/70 over a period of 12 weeks. Also cut out alcohol, anything more than a glass of wine raises my BP for a day or so afterwards. Of course, you can't eat any pre-prepared food this way as it has way too much salt. No bread, cheese, butter etc. Food begins to taste much better after a couple of weeks on a low salt diet as salt dulls the sense of taste.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#50

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

riffraff wrote: post #44
irjustin wrote: post #29

I have High Blood Pressure. 140/100 when non-medicated during the office day. 110/85-90, medicated and relaxed. Having this since 25 (37 now), my genetics sadly puts a cap on my life expectancy (all other vitals normal, HBP runs in family). All this to say, I hate measuring my BP and follow this space closely. It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day and I have to largely stop what I'm doing. I would gi…

> It's a chore that takes minimum 10 minutes twice a day 10 minutes sounds like a lot, I have a pretty common OMRON automatic pressure measuring device[0], and it takes about a minute to do the actual measuring, plus, say, another two to take off my sweater and put it back on. I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you? EDIT: have you tried meditation? As a fellow person with genetic disp…

>> I suppose I am missing something, how come it takes much longer for you?

Not the OP, but at a guess (one of my relatives has kidney disease and take their blood pressure twice a day every day), it takes about 5' to relax, then another 5' to take two readings and combine the results. My relative takes three readings and keeps the last. From my understanding this is common with electronic devices, where the measured BP changes between readings.

Again from my relative's experience (I helped them with a bit of code to keep track of their BP and plot it etc) the trend is usually monotonic, i.e. either it starts low and goes up a bit, or it starts high and goes down a bit. Sometimes more than "a bit", like from 130/80 to 120/70 (i.e. from hypertensive to normotensive range), etc. Manual sphygmomanometers don't seem to have the same variance in their readings. From my understanding, the digital devices have some kind of model that estimates BP from the readings of an oscillometric sensor and are less accurate than the hand-operated ones. The table-top mercury ones are the most reliable of the bunch. And as to finger-cuff devices, you might as well read tea leaves.

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