Home Blood Pressure Monitors

White-coat hypertension is a phenomenon where patients tend to have higher blood pressure in the presence of health care workers and particularly physicians. In some patients it may be necessary to measure blood pressure at home to determine whether or not there is true hypertension or if the presence of health care workers is affecting the readings being recorded. It is important to note that there are a variety of other reasons for home blood pressure measurement and being asked to record your readings at home may be an important part of your treatment.

Yes. In general you should take your blood pressure on your left arm. If you are unable to take your blood pressure on your left arm, you may take it on your right arm instead but you should be aware that there may be differences between your right and left arms. In some patients the differences can be as much as 10 mmHg or more. It is not recommended that you compare readings between both arms if you have taken multiple readings on both, as the results may vary due to the differences between the two arms.

A number of factors can affect the readings obtained by your automatic blood pressure monitor and it is important to keep several of these in mind when preparing to take a reading. The following points should be considered before measurement:

Depending on the model you have purchased, your home BP monitor will allow you to store a set number of readings. For our single-user models including the 6021 series, once you have reached the maximum number of readings that can be stored on your monitor, a ‘FULL’ message will display onscreen to indicate that the monitor’s memory is full. When this happens, taking additional readings will begin to overwrite older readings stored in memory.

Tough question! When measured by a trained professional, following AHA recommendations for blood pressure measurement, a manual instrument will produce very accurate results. Today, home digital BP monitors are VERY accurate, but they do have limitations. Because the algorithms used to calculate blood pressure are based on a limited number of clinical observations, there are people for whom digital units simply will not work.

ADC digital sphygs have a pressure sensor self test that is activated each time you power on the instrument. If the microprocessor detects anything wrong with either the pressure sensor or the chip that analyzes the readings, an error message will be displayed BEFORE measurement. If the unit beeps and displays 0, you can be confident in the instrument's accuracy.

A variety of reasons. First of all, blood pressure itself is a dynamic rather than static vital sign. Both systolic and diastolic pressures can vary from 10mmHg to 20mmHg or more throughout the course of the day. In some people, a lot more than that. BP is generally lower in the morning and increases throughout the day. Eating, drinking, smoking, exercise and even talking all influence blood pressure. Instrument repeatability will also result in measurement variance.