Blood pressure monitoring: Sharing common elements, problems

EDITOR'S NOTE: We asked Dr. Gardner to write about a topic that he has been studying for much of his career. The article that follows is tutorial in nature but for good purpose. While all biomedical engineers are aware of the damping characteristics of catheter-manometer systems, fat more often than we'd care to recount, in actual practice highly distorted and often misleading waveforms are present in the critical care unit. Dr. Gardner's summary of the factors affecting the system should help clinically-associated people tend to these corrections.