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Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

caltech.edu

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Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a resident physician and I deny having my BP taken in outpatient clinics. The techniques used are ridiculously inappropriate: "Ok, Mr. So-and-so, come with me." calls the nurse, as the pt who is irritated for having to wait 30 minutes quickly gets up to walk along unknown hallways, while rushing to finish a phone conversation, stressed and not knowing where to turn next..."Ok, now we're going to weigh you on this…

One thing that I think would dramatically improve the routine screening numbers at doctors' offices would be to try and take it after the patient has been sitting down for a few minutes waiting for the doctor after the other vitals have been taken. If I'm going to sit around for 15m+ anyways, why not use some of that time to let BP stabilize?

Because it's a practically impossible workflow: economics dictate that on duty your time should already be filled up doing something productive.

If anything, the usefulness of an office BP is to screen only people whose heads or hearts are about to blow up from a crazy high reading. Current guidelines now recommend people keep logs at home.

I manually recheck BPs myself if the readings are off the charts.

Robotics in the future could help the workflow though.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#82
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had it too. When I was under stress, sometimes I could hear my pulse in my ears like a whooshing sound. I stopped drinking and my BP is now completely normal, and RHR is low 40's. Sleep is much better too.

Are you serious? Your RHR is in the low 40s? Mine is typically 58-65 and I was told I have bradycardia!

Serious distance runner here: about five years ago while laid up in the hospital the alarm kept going off in the middle of the night on the HR monitor machine.

Nurse: “it goes off if your HR is too low.”

Me: “what’s it set to?”

Nurse: “39 BPM”

Me: “ yeah, you’re going to want to turn that down a few notches.”

Genetics play a role, too. Back in the day, one of the fastest road bike racers in WA state told me he’d never seen his resting HR below 60.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#83

This approach has been tried before. Bill Softky describes a startup he'd worked for using a similar sound-transduction continuous non-invasive blood-pressure monitoring technique. It ... had problems: Our non-invasive device was supposed to measure blood pressure just as accurately [as an arterial line], but without the cutting, using specially-sculpted sonic vibrations and fancy algorithmic analysis, which was my j…

I guess it's not considered reasonable to keep your arm still when measuring BP, or to measure it only during intervals of minimal movement? Doesn't seem like a showstopper to me.

One of the key applications for this technology is during surgery, when (ideally) nothing is being moved.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#84

This approach has been tried before. Bill Softky describes a startup he'd worked for using a similar sound-transduction continuous non-invasive blood-pressure monitoring technique. It ... had problems: Our non-invasive device was supposed to measure blood pressure just as accurately [as an arterial line], but without the cutting, using specially-sculpted sonic vibrations and fancy algorithmic analysis, which was my j…

It’s just a blurb from a college PR team. As someone that came from academia, they don’t have to have solved any of that because these are generally pretty worthless. It can be as small as someone in a lab discovered how to do the smallest thing and the college wants to run with it to look good.

There's a nicely-presented introductory paper: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/7/pgae252/77177...

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#85
post #4

As a person who had a hypertensive crisis late last year, nothing boils my blood (yes, a pun, I am fine now) more than how people measure blood pressure incorrectly in doctors offices and even hospitals. There are many different things than can increase a BP measurement above the "baseline" including talking, moving around, not having rested but also just waking up, not being in a supported position, only a single va…

> not being in a supported position

does this mean your arm is not relaxed when measuring?

They always measure my blood pressure in a jury-rigged way resting on not an armrest, but some uncomfortable bracket of the blood pressure device.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#86
post #4

As a person who had a hypertensive crisis late last year, nothing boils my blood (yes, a pun, I am fine now) more than how people measure blood pressure incorrectly in doctors offices and even hospitals. There are many different things than can increase a BP measurement above the "baseline" including talking, moving around, not having rested but also just waking up, not being in a supported position, only a single va…

I'm a resident physician and I deny having my BP taken in outpatient clinics. The techniques used are ridiculously inappropriate: "Ok, Mr. So-and-so, come with me." calls the nurse, as the pt who is irritated for having to wait 30 minutes quickly gets up to walk along unknown hallways, while rushing to finish a phone conversation, stressed and not knowing where to turn next..."Ok, now we're going to weigh you on this…

Not only the medical personnel is very often unable to properly measure the blood pressure, they also cannot properly take blood sample for potassium. They put tourniquet and order patients to pump their fist, so that the veins appear, but that cause muscles to release potassium into the bloodstream, causing elevated levels and misdiagnosis leading to incorrect treatment. I make people aware of that, and it should be widely spread so that doctors and nurses have the knowledge that they sometimes unwittingly cause harm.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#87
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had hypertension for about 15 years and after quitting drinking and smoking no longer do. I still suffer from white cost hypertension regularly and frequently have to tell nurses to just press the button again - second time drops back to normal range with a drop of about 20/10.

I stopped drinking and mine went up :p Being sober is pretty stressful

It took me a good 10 days after quitting to start to feel "normal" and sleep without waking up drenched in sweat. Depending on intake and other factors it can take a while to fully heal. Months or longer.

Something I realized was that alcohol was actually causing my anxiety and depression, which was one of several things that led me to quitting. I paid compound interest on the short term relief.

Re: Caltech Develops First Noninvasive Method to Continually Measure Blood Pressure

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a resident physician and I deny having my BP taken in outpatient clinics. The techniques used are ridiculously inappropriate: "Ok, Mr. So-and-so, come with me." calls the nurse, as the pt who is irritated for having to wait 30 minutes quickly gets up to walk along unknown hallways, while rushing to finish a phone conversation, stressed and not knowing where to turn next..."Ok, now we're going to weigh you on this…

People try to cheat BP tests? Because they dont want tp taks BP meds? Daaaang I'm trying to get my head around that. I guess I'm missing something because that sounds like an incredibly tangled way to be.

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