Dual-cuff system improves noninvasive blood pressure determination

Accurate measurement of blood pressure (BP) is important for diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. Noninvasive BP measurements performed manually or automatically are subject to errors. We developed an experimental system that uses two cuffs in order to improve accuracy of noninvasive BP measurement. The system consists of a compact module with pneumatic and electronic circuits, two detachable cuffs (arm and wrist), and a notebook computer connected to the module via a USB cable. The notebook's special software controls the module's functions and receives four channels of digitized data. We designed the specialized software as a Windows-based multifunction system that performs automatic determination of BP and hemodynamics. Dual-cuff BP function uses the wrist cuff as a substitute for a stethoscope for improved accuracy. The wrist cuff is also used for computation of hemodynamics.