PORTABLE AUTOMATED BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORING APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

PORTABLE AUTOMATED BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORING APPARATUS AND METHOD A portable computer-based blood pressure monitoring system 100 automatically measures heart rate and blood pressure using the auscultatory method. Measurements are performed unexpectedly at random time intervals to prevent the subject from affecting his blood pressure and heart rate due to expected onset of measurement. Data indicating Korotkoff sounds and cuff pressure is stored both in digital form in a semiconductor random access memory (132) and in analog form on a serial magnetic tape recorder (112) during a cuff cycle. The stored digital data is analyzed at the end of the cuff cycle to select two Korotkoff sounds in the cycle in response to several different criteria. The stored cuff pressure corresponding to one of the selected Korotkoff sounds is taken to be the systolic blood pressure of the subject, and the stored cuff pressure corresponding to the other selected Korotkoff sound is taken to be the diastolic blood pressure of the subject. The system (100) automatically maintains occluding cuff pressure constant for a predetermined period after inflation of the cuff (114) before performing measurements to prevent pnuematic ringing from affecting blood pressure measurements.