An improved algorithm for noninvasive blood pressure measurement

Blood pressure is one of important physiological parameters which reflect the functional status of heart and vessels of human beings. General oscillometric method of noninvasive blood pressure measurement usually extracts oscillation amplitudes during the deflation, then uses the curve fitting technique to calculate blood pressure. In this paper, an improved algorithm is proposed which uses partially the information in the inflatable stage. According to the estimated pulse rate and mean pressure of subjects by preprocessing the data of the inflatable stage, the algorithm sets the occluded pressure that is slightly above the systolic pressure, adjusts number of pressure steps, and determines duration of the pressure steps respectively. Numerical experiments are performed to demonstrate the validity and high performance of the proposed algorithm for blood pressure simulator signals and subjects. The test results of human beings show that the algorithm is effective to achieve precise blood pressure measurement and reduce the subject discomfort within short measurement time.