Peer Reviewed
Feature Article Cardiovascular medicine
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring: beyond the simple BP
Recent articles on:
Hypertension
Hypertension
Recent articles on:
Heart diseases--prevention
Heart diseases--prevention
Abstract
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is a vital tool in the diagnosis and management of hypertension. A systematic approach is required to properly interpret an ABPM recording.
Key Points
- Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is a useful tool in diagnosing and managing patients with an elevated clinic blood pressure (BP) reading.
- ABPM assesses a patient’s BP more accurately than clinic measurements and provides additional key information about the patient’s BP profile, including daytime (awake) and night-time (asleep) BP.
- ABPM can identify patients with masked hypertension (hypertension not detected by clinic BP measurements).
- Key results from ABPM must be identified to interpret a recording; these include the number of valid BP measurements, average daytime and night-time BPs, BP load and nocturnal dipping pattern.
Picture credit: © Welch Allyn Australia
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