Continuous and Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring Using ECG and SpO2 Signals

Background: One of the main problems especially in operating room and monitoring devices is measurement of Blood Pressure (BP) by sphygmomanometer cuff. Objective: In this study we designed a new method to measure BP changes continuously for detecting information between cuff in?ation times by using vital signals in monitoring devices. This will be achieved by extraction of the time difference between each cardiac cycle and a relative pulse wave. Methods: Finger pulse and ECG signals in lead I were recorded by a monitoring device. The output of monitoring device is inserted in a computer by serial network communication. A software interface is used to display and process the signals in the computer. Time difference between each cardiac cycle and pulse signal was calculated throughout R wave detection in ECG and peak of pulse signal by the software. The relation between time difference in two waves and BP was determined then the coeffcients of equation were obtained in different physical situations. The results of estimating BP were compared with the results of sphygmomanometer method and the error rate was calculated. Results: In this study, 25 subjects participated among them 15 were male and 10 were female. The results show that BP is linearly related to time difference. Average of coeffcient correlation is 0.9±0.03 for systolic and 0.82±0.04 for diastolic blood pressure. The highest error percentage was calculated 8% for male and 11% for female group. Signifcant difference was observed between the different physical situation and arm movement changes. The relationship between time difference and age was estimated in a linear relationship with a correlation coeffcient of 0.76. Conclusion: By determining linear relation values with high accuracy, BP can be measured with insignifcant error. Therefore it can be suggested as a new method to measure the blood pressure continuously.