Wrist Type BP Monitor

Health and Wellness » Blood Pressure Care in India » Wrist Type BP Monitor

Nearly every individual has used blood pressure monitors in the doctor’s clinic, so you must be aware that they go over the upper arm. If you have high blood pressure, then it’s always best to monitor your blood pressure readings on a daily basis. Your BP could rise at any given point of time in case you are hypertensive and you won’t even come to know about it.

One can find very little to no symptoms when hypertension happens, so it’s vital to have your BP checked and monitored frequently. So what’s better than a wrist type BP monitor? Conversely, a repeated appointment with your doctor for just checking the blood pressure could be expensive as well as frustrating. In such a situation, it’s always better to get your own BP monitor at home which always helps you in taking the readings on your own.

However, digital arm monitors that are used in doctor’s clinics could be expensive. These days, the inexpensive alternative is the digital wrist type BP monitors which you could just bring around anywhere as it’s so solid that you could also carry it in your purse with ease.

Accuracy of Wrist BP monitors

Wrist type BP monitors can be precise if used accurately as directed. However, as per the American Heart Association, it’s best to use a home blood pressure monitor which measures blood pressure in your upper arm. Devices for upper arm are also easier to check for accuracy than the wrist monitors.

Wrist BP monitors are enormously sensitive to the position of the body. Your arm and wrist must be at heart level in order to get a precise reading when taking your blood pressure with a wrist monitor. Even then, it’s believed that because of differences in the width of the arteries in your forearm and the depth of the arteries under your skin, blood pressure measurements taken at the wrist are generally higher and less accurate than those taken at your upper arm.

It’s not unusual for blood pressure readings taken at home on any type of BP monitor to be dissimilar from those taken at your doctor’s clinic. If you have a wrist type BP monitor, it’s a good idea to take your monitor to your family doctor for taking an accurate reading. Your doctor would then check your blood pressure with both a standard upper arm monitor and a wrist monitor at the right position in the same arm to monitor your wrist blood pressure monitor’s accuracy.

Having said all that, there are several advantages in owning a wrist type BP monitor rather than having a traditional BP monitor and that includes ease of use and portability. For some individuals, wrist blood pressure monitors have accuracy issues but in real, these monitors are created to give exact readings. They show an error message if the system senses some fault in readings. Accuracy could only become an issue if this blood pressure monitor isn’t used properly and the most typical problem arises when this monitor is not being held at the heart’s level which could result in inaccurate reading.