Clinical validation of a blood-pressure sensor for continuous health monitoring
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
and is even now FDA-cleared for clinical use: e.g. https://www.bio-beat.com/post/the-biobeat-cuffless-wrist-blo...
Pulse ox and HRM such as Apple Watch and the cheapy blue and white finger readers are ubiquitous and not absurdly inaccurate (usually).
To the GP's point, the largest blood pressure monitor company is Omron. Portable monitors have been around. https://www.omron.com/global/en/technology/omrontechnics/vol... is a good place to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches. Piezoelectric and PPG would have the advantage of lower cost, lower mechanical complexity, and continuous monitoring instead of point measurements.
Not reliable/valid cuffless monitors, though. That's relatively new, if I understand correctly.
It's a balancing act. I've now had one, and my partner has had one instance of going to see a specialist who says "you shouldn't have been sent here, this is the effect of improved imaging and diagnostics without updating the criteria for triage" -The imaging and related diagnostic tools now "find" artifacts which are sub-clinical for risk, but the triage requirements on the technician require them to report on, since "it might not be"
- An unrepresentative test set , i.e. a population with similar blood pressure at recording in which merely predicting a constant 'typical' reading would perform well in terms of accuracy.
- A major methodology flaw, such as 'demonstrating' an ability to detect fluctuations from a baseline calibration cuff reading in situations where you would expect no significant fluctuations to occur.
What does it mean to do continuous blood pressure monitoring? Do we have any idea how BP is supposed to behave continuously, when clinical standards are around a random sampling in particular resting postures? And do you have to account for all the fluid movements and pressure changes that happen during activity, with muscles contracting and body parts accelerating?
Aktiia has done some studies for its product and works by taking a BP cuff measurement to calibrate its PPG sensor-based algorithm. If you can get rid of the cuff and can sell an affordable wearable device, that would be a promising future.