For a More Reliable Measure of Wrist Blood Pressure Using Smartwatch

Abstract

Background: If blood pressure (BP) measurement is important to monitor blood hypertension and other cardiac diseases, and can be taken using a wrist device, learned societies recommend to take it in specific conditions. In a telemedicine context, patients are likely to perform it without any help from a medical practitioner. Therefore, the device must guide individuals using it.Materials and Methods: A smartwatch application integrating an Attitude and Heading Reference System algorithm was developed. It was combined with a wrist BP monitor to help users position the BP monitor properly.Results: The system was tested on 30 individuals and a survey conducted to evaluate its usability. The experiment showed that individuals needed to be guided to measure correctly their BP and our application helped them in positioning the wrist BP monitor in a user-friendly way.Conclusions: In a telemedicine context, it is possible to guide easily individuals to position correctly any commercialized wrist BP monitor using a smartwatch. Manufacturers could also integrate affordable sensors into their BP monitors to provide this assistance without the need of external devices.

Keywords: AHRS; home health monitoring; telehealth; telemedicine; wrist blood pressure monitor.