“In the U.S. less than half of people with high blood pressure have it under control”, reports David Goff, MD, PhD, Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov. Given the poor level of control, it is time to develop technologies that will empower patients to be more involved in monitoring their blood pressure.
Researchers supported by NIH https://www.nih.gov are developing new and improved monitoring devices in a stepped-up effort to stem the epidemic rates of uncontrolled hypertension. The new devices will include a new wave of electronics from skin patches to smartwatches.
New devices under development, may improve using the standard monitoring device, but also can come with challenges such as accuracy validation. A recent study shows that most home blood pressure monitors currently on the market have not been validated for accuracy by a testing agency that does not have ties to a manufacturer. Implementing new devices into the community that is effective, affordable, plus sustainable in routine daily care and practices is also another issue.
So far, Ramakrishna Mukkamala, PhD, a Professor at Michigan State University https://msu.edu with partial funding from NHLBI, has developed a smartphone-based device that can monitor blood pressure using the pressure of a person’s index finger.
In other research, a team funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging NIBIB, https://www.nibib.nih.gov developed a noninvasive skin patch that can be worn on the neck for continuous measurement of blood pressure. The prototype device, which is made of a thin sheet of silicone polymer integrated with an array of tiny electronic parts, is able to measure blood pressure through ultrasound or high frequency sound waves. The sound waves are then read by customized software in an external device wired to the patch.
In another project funded by NIBIB, researchers at Georgia Tech https://www.gatech.edu have developed a smartwatch called a SeismoWatch. It looks like any other smartwatch and contains miniature motion sensors which can measure blood pressure by recording chest vibrations produced by the heartbeat.
The prototype is externally wired to a monitor and contains no readable watch face, In the future, researchers report that the future version can be engineered to be wireless and have a readout like a regular smartwatch in about 10 to 15 seconds.
“The hope is to enable the SeismoWatch to be affordable and reliable for blood pressure measurement for use particularly in medically underserved minority populations where rates of hypertension are high,” reports, Omer Inan, PhD, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech.