Blood pressure measurement at home

Czech version

Authors: J. Filipovský
Authors‘ workplace: II. interní kliniky LF UK a FN v Plzni
Published in: Kardiol Rev Int Med 2006, 8(1-2): 32-35
Category: Editorial

Overview

Blood pressure measurement is a simple procedure, however, it must be done properly in order to get reliable values. Clinic blood pressure remains golden standard because it was used in the majority of large clinical trials performed in hypertension, but home blood pressure measurement becomes more and more important. It has numerous advantages: a large number of measurements is obtained, white coat effect or masked hypertension can be detected, patients’ adherence to therapy can increase etc. Its major advantage is that it predicts future cardiovascular events much better than clinic blood pressure; this applies not only to untreated subjects, but, more importantly, to treated hypertensive subjects as well. This is why we should motivate hypertensive patients to measure blood pressure at home in standardized conditions.

Key words:
blood pressure measurement – home blood pressure – cardiovascular risk

Sources

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