Biomed Instrum Technol. 1992 Jan-Feb;26(1):52-7.
Biomedical instrumentation & technology
N S Latman
PMID: 1737185
Self-blood pressure monitoring can be critical in the management of hypertension, but it is often awkward and cumbersome. One attempt to improve the ease with which such measurements are made was the development of electronic, digital, automatic monitors for measurement of blood pressure in the finger. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy, reliability, failure rate, and ease of operation of these devices. While these finger devices were found easier to use than the traditional brachial-artery methods, their accuracies and reliabilities were lower. The greater responsiveness of the digital arteries to changes in local conditions is suggested as the cause of the lesser accuracy and reliability. The author concludes that blood pressure in the digital arteries of the finger is not sufficiently representative of general systemic blood pressure for clinical purposes.
