Oscillometric blood pressure monitor and method employing non- uniform pressure decrementing steps

摘要

A blood pressure cuff is applied about a subject's artery, and inflated above the systolic level thus fully occluding the artery for a full heart cycle. The cuff pressure is thereafter reduced to permit an increasing flow through the progressively less occluded artery, and a measure of the peak amplitudes of the successively encountered blood pressure (oscillatory complex) pulses stored in memory. Also retained is the cuff pressure obtaining for each stored complex peak. In accordance with varying aspects of the present invention, the stored complex peak- representing data ensemble is corrected for aberrations; and improved data processing operates on the stored (and advantageously corrected) pulse peak data and the corresponding cuff pressure information to determine the subject's systolic arterial blood pressure.