Importance

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Abstract

A system and method for automatically and noninvasively monitoring the blood pressure of a subject. The volume changes of an artery, such as a digital artery or the temporal artery, are detected by a photoplethysmograph. The volume changes are then used to determine the blood pressure and the blood pressure waveform, of the subject. The model used to relate the volume of the artery to the pressure contained within the artery is referred to as the total compliance model. The total compliance model determines the compliance of each patient's artery which is being used as a sensing site. The compliance information is then used to determine the blood pressure at any particular point in time to the detected volume of the artery. Thus, the present invention can be reliably and accurately used with patients which have abnormal blood pressure levels and waveforms which heretofore could not be accurately measured using previous noninvasive methods and apparatus that assumed once the mean pressure for a patient was determined, the systolic and diastolic pressure could be found by applying fixed ratio techniques to detected changes in arterial volume.

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First Claim