Home Blood Pressure Testing Better Than at Clinics: Study
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Everyone's been there. You've arrived for your scheduled doctor's office visit and the first order of real business is the reunion with the blood pressure cuff. The first reading might be high. A second reading looks a bit better — or maybe a bit worse. Which one's right? The answer: Perhaps neither. Individual measures of blood pressure are not as accurate as taking multiple readings over a day and averaging them. Blood pressure varies throughout the day — by about 30 points for systolic pressure, or the pressure when the heart beats — and one or two measurements in a doctor's office may not accurately reflect the average figure, says Beverly B. Green, MD, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
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@anuraag Average blood pressure reading is the only measurement on which a doctor can accurately diagnose and treat high blood pressure, she says. A new study by Green and other researchers at Kaiser Permanente shows that giving patients the chance to monitor their blood pressure at home could help get more reliable measurements. Nearly one in four adults in the U.S. with high blood pressure are unaware they have the condition and are not getting treatment to control it. Without treatment, the condition can cause heart attacks, strokes, kidney damage, and other potentially life-threatening health problems. Current guidelines for diagnosing high blood pressure recommend that patients whose pressure is high in the clinic get tested again to confirm the results. While the guidelines recommend home monitoring before diagnosing high blood pressure, research shows that doctors continue to measure blood pressure in their clinics for the second reading.