US 6,186,954 B1Granted

Blood-pressure monitoring apparatus

AssigneeColin Corporation

InventorKiyoyuki Narimatsu

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A blood-pressure monitoring apparatus including a measuring device which includes an inflatable cuff adapted to apply a pressing pressure to a body portion of a living subject and measures a blood-pressure value of the living subject by changing the pressing pressure of the inflatable cuff, an information obtaining device which iteratively obtains a piece of information relating to propagation of a pulse wave through an arterial vessel of the subject, an estimating device for iteratively estimating a blood-pressure value, EBP, of the subject, based on each piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information, PWPI, obtained by the information obtaining device, according to a linear relationship between pulse-wave-propagation-relating information and blood pressure, the linear relationship being defined by a linear expression, EBP=α(PWPI)+α, where α is a slope and β is an intercept, an index-value calculating device for calculating an index value indicative of a hardness of a blood vessel of the subject, and a slope determining device for determining, based on the calculated index value, the slope α of the linear expression.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A blood-pressure monitoring apparatus comprising:

a measuring device which includes an inflatable cuff adapted to apply a pressing pressure to a body portion of a living subject and which measures at least one blood-pressure value of the living subject by changing the pressing pressure of the inflatable cuff;
a pulse-wave-propagation-relating-information obtaining device which iteratively obtains a piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information relating to propagation of a pulse wave through an arterial vessel of the living subject;
estimating means for iteratively estimating a blood-pressure value, EBP, of the living subject, based on each piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information, PWPI, obtained by the pulse-wave-propagation-relating-information obtaining device, according to a linear relationship between pulse-wave-propagation-relating information and blood pressure, the linear relationship being defined by a following linear expression, EBP=α(PWPI)+β, where α is a slope and β is an intercept;
index-value calculating means for calculating, based on the blood-pressure value of the living subject measured by the measuring device, an index value indicative of a hardness of a blood vessel of the living subject;
slope determining means for determining, based on the calculated index value, the slope α of the linear expression;
and
intercept determining means for determining the intercept β of the linear expression, based on the blood-pressure value measured by the measuring device, the piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information obtained by the pulse-wave-propagation-relating-information obtaining device when the blood-pressure value is measured by the measuring device, and the slope α determined by the slope determining means.

4 more elements

A blood-pressure monitoring apparatus comprising:

a measuring device which includes an inflatable cuff adapted to apply a pressing pressure to a first body portion of a living subject and which measures at least one blood-pressure value of the living subject by changing the pressing pressure of the inflatable cuff;
a pulse-wave-propagation-relating-information obtaining device which iteratively obtains a piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information relating to propagation of a pulse wave through an arterial vessel of the living subject;
estimating means for iteratively estimating a blood-pressure value, EBP, of the living subject, based on each piece of pulse-wave-propagation-relating information, PWPI, obtained by the pulse-wave-propagation-relating-information obtaining device, according to a linear relationship between pulse-wave-propagation-relating information and blood pressure, the linear relationship being defined by a following linear expression, EBP=α(PWPI)+β, where α is a slope and β is an intercept;
index-value calculating means for calculating an index value indicative of a hardness of a blood vessel of the living subject;
and
slope determining means for determining, based on the calculated index value, the slope α of the linear expression.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.