Ambulatory blood pressure
Wearable blood pressure monitors give an accurate assessment of BP readings over a full 24hr cycle.
BP monitors for hypertension
Diagnosis of high blood pressure is generally based on measurements taken in a doctor’s office or hospital, or at home. Sometimes, measurements taken in these settings are borderline or highly variable, or may not give a true and accurate picture of the blood pressure in normal life.
In this situation it can be useful to use a 24hr ambulatory blood pressure monitor. This is a small computer attached to a blood pressure cuff (or “sphygmomanometer”) which measures the blood pressure repeatedly over one day and one night. This allows various statistics to be calculated, including the diurnal (daytime) and nocturnal (night time) average pressures or “means” and also the size of the nocturnal dip in blood pressure.
For more details on the use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to diagnose and guide management of hypertension, see NICE Guidance 136: Diagnosis and Management of Hypertension.
BP monitors for dizziness
Low blood pressure can cause dizziness and fainting and some illnesses can cause a tendency to low blood pressure intermittently. In this situation, a 24hr blood pressure monitor can be useful to identify an unusually variable blood pressure, which can suggest problems with blood pressure regulation for example as a part of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction.