Saturday, December 3, 2011

Finding The Right Home Blood Pressure Monitor

By Owen Jones


If you want to check your blood pressure at home, you will require a blood pressure monitor. These monitors are not necessarily very expensive but are within the budget of most households. There are basically two sorts of home monitor: aneroid and digital.

The aneroid monitor has a dial-type gauge and you read off your blood pressure figures from that. It also has a cuff, which you wrap about your arm and which you inflate with a rubber bulb. The digital monitors also use a cuff, yet it can be manually or automatically blown up. The results are read from a small screen. The choice is yours, but most people prefer the automatic digital monitor.

An aneroid home monitor is portable and requires neither batteries nor electricity so is somewhat cheaper than the digital version. It also has a stethoscope built into the cuff for easy monitoring. A problem could arise in raucous surroundings or if the user is hard of hearing. Someone with arthritic hands or fingers might have problems squeezing the bulb too.

Digital monitors are more expensive, yet they are more well-liked too despite that, because they can be completely automatic. The screen is also easier to read and some units come with a small printer to create a physical record of your readings. Other digital home monitors have a memory.

The one I use has three memories of thirty slots each so that you can compare records over a month. Having three memories means that you can monitor and record readings for three separate people or three separate time slots for one person over the period of a month. If you choose three time slots they could be morning, noon and night, as blood pressures vary during the day.

Whichever type of monitor you opt for, make certain that the cuff is the correct size for you. Be particularly cautious if you have very substantial or very thin arms. Check the age range for the device as well. Mine says for use only on people over 18 years, yet does not say why.

If electricity or batteries is ever likely to be a a problem, then the automatic digital home monitor may not be for you, although you may be able to fix it up to photovoltaic cells to exploit the sun's energy.

Neither of these units are difficult to use, when you know how, so be sure that the instruction book does not look as if it was translated by machine. It is of course vital to know how to take precise readings and how to interpret them. In order to check the accuracy of your device it is worth taking it with on your next visit to your physician.

You can check your readings against those of his sphygmomanometer, which is thought of as the gold standard of blood monitoring devices. Your GP will also be able to tell you what your systolic and diastolic pressures ought to be.




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