Central blood pressure monitoring via a standard automatic arm cuff

A method for determining central blood pressure for a subject using an automatic sphygmomanometer, comprising:

• measuring cuff pressure using an automatic sphygmomanometer during deflation or inflation of a cuff of the automatic sphygmomanometer, thereby yielding a cuff pressure waveform;
• deriving an oscillogram from the measured cuff pressure waveform, where the oscillogram is an amplitude of oscillations in the measured cuff pressure as a function of the measured cuff pressure;
• estimating systolic pressure and diastolic pressure for the subject from the oscillogram;
• extracting a pulse volume plethysmography (PVP) waveform from the measured cuff pressure waveform by one of amplitude or time scaling beats of the measured cuff pressure waveform and ensemble averaging the scaled beats of the measured cuff pressure waveform;
• scaling the PVP waveform to the estimated systolic pressure and diastolic pressure;
• and
• determining a central blood pressure waveform for the subject from the scaled PVP waveform and using a transfer function, where the transfer function defines a relationship between the central blood pressure and the PVP waveform.

A system for determining central blood pressure for a subject, comprising:

• an automatic blood pressure monitor with an inflatable cuff, the automatic blood pressure monitor operates to measure cuff pressure during inflation and deflation of the cuff and generates a cuff pressure waveform;
• a brachial blood pressure estimator configured to receive the cuff pressure waveform and estimate systolic pressure and diastolic pressure for the subject from the cuff pressure waveform;
• a PVP extractor configured to receive the cuff pressure waveform and extract a pulse volume plethysmography (PVP) waveform from the variable-amplitude cuff pressure oscillation waveform obtained by high pass filtering the measured cuff pressure waveform;
• and
• a central transformer configured to receive the estimated systolic pressure and diastolic pressure and the extracted PVP waveform, the central transformer scales the PVP waveform to the estimated systolic pressure and diastolic pressure and determines a central blood pressure waveform for the subject using the scaled PVP waveform, wherein the brachial blood pressure estimator, the PVP extractor and the central transformer are implemented by computer readable instructions executed by a computer processor.