inotrope

ralphie said:

Poorly written article at best.. “the "holy grails" of non-invasive blood pressure”.  Since when has blood pressure measurement been invasive?!  Maybe the author should look for a new physician.

We routinely use invasive arterial blood pressure (IABP) during major surgery and on intensive care. A cannula is inserted into the artery (usually radial) and the pressure is measured via a Wheatstone bridge transducer (via a column of saline in a stiff-walled line). This gives a continuous arterial pressure waveform and allows us to measure BP and surrogates of cardiac function and take a range of blood tests of lung and metabolic function.

The watch thing sounds cool though. However it works - shape/amplitude of the photoplethysmograph waveform prehaps?

I wonder if Apple could* combine Pulse oximetry and ECG with the sleep app. This could be interesting in indicating a risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea. Indeed, add in microphone snore/apnoea sensing on the 'phone (like popular sleep tracking apps have) and this could be really useful in indicating risk - correlate with a Health App based Epworth Sleepiness Score and already entered anthropomorphic data and could identify many presently undiagnosed OSA suffers (or at least highlight a risk and prompt a physician review). It's very under diagnosed!


*I bet they've thought of this!