Accuracy Comparison of Oscillometric and Electronic Palpation Blood Pressure Measuring Methods Using Intra-Arterial Method as a Reference

This paper evaluates blood pressure measurements by the electronic palpation method (EP) and compares their accuracy to that of the oscillometric method (OSC) using average intra-arterial (IA) blood pressure as a reference. All of these three measurements were made simultaneously for each patient. The EP method, based on noninvasively detecting the amplitude of pressure pulsations in the radial artery, differs from the ordinary palpation method by allowing also diastolic pressure to be determined from the pulse delay produced by cuff pressure. In one test group, measurements were conducted on healthy volunteers in sitting and supine position during increasing and decreasing cuff pressure. Another group, comprising older, cardiac patients, was measured only in the supine position during cuff inflation. The results showed that the EP method was approximately as accurate as the OSC method with the healthy subjects and slightly more accurate with the cardiac patient group. The advantage of the EP method is that also the wave shape and velocity of arterial pressure pulses is available for further analysis like the assessment of arterial stiffness. Keywords: noninvasive, blood pressure, cuff, pulse transit time, pulse wave velocity