USE OF A NEONATAL BLOOD-PRESSURE CUFF TO MONITOR BLOOD-PRESSURE IN THE ADULT FINGER COMPARISON WITH A STANDARD ADULT ARM CUFF

Background. There are few suitable methods for monitoring blood pressu re continously (or intermittently) for research in adult stroke patien ts, who are ill but do not justify invasive intensive care monitoring. Method. We tested a neonatal arm blood pressure in adults by placing it on the forefinger (''finger cuff''). We compared the repeatability of the finger cuff with blood pressure measured by a standard adult ar m cuff using the oscillometric technique in 168 ambulatory outpatients attending a cerebrovascular disease clinic. Results. The mean differe nce between sequential mean blood pressure readings with the finger cu ff was 0.55 mm Hg (95% confidence interval (CI) -14.36 to 15.47 mm Hg) , and for the arm cuff was 3.31 mm Hg (95% CI -23.33 to 16.71 mm Hg). Measurements made with the arm cuff were shown to affect subsequent ar m cuff readings made within a few minutes of the first. The mean diffe rence between the finger cuff and arm cuff mean blood pressure reading s was 0.03 mm Hg (95% CI -26.07 to 26.14 mm Hg) and agreement was bett er when the blood pressure was measured with the finger cuff first rat her than the arm cuff. However, although there was no difference in th e mean blood pressure recordings both systolic and diastolic blood pre ssure measurements differed systematically between arm and linger cuff . Conclusion. The reproducibility of sequential blood pressure measure ments made with the finger cuff was better than with the arm cuff. The performance of the finger cuff compared with that of the arm cuff was sufficiently good to encourage use of the finger cuff in research inv olving automatic intermittent monitoring to observe sequential blood p ressures over time in stroke patients. However, measurements of systol ic and diastolic pressure were not the same with the two cuffs and fur ther work on calibration of the finger cuff would be useful.