Comparison of time domain and frequency domain assessments of arterial wave reflections

Several methods have been proposed to assess the effective magnitudes and sites of wave reflections in the arterial system. There is no general consensus as to the merit of each. The authors compared two methods based on the same information derived from measured pressure and flow waveforms. Results show that wave reflections can be equally accurately quantified from either the time or the frequency domain, but the time domain method provides a better visual interpretation of the magnitudes and sites of wave reflections.