How accurate are blood pressure monitors?

[hanadr]

My Gp says the ones that measure on the wrist are so inaccurate they should be banned.
my upper arm one tallies quite well with his
hana

 

[Muxi21]

My husband has a home monitor. When he goes to the doctor the nurse checks our home BP monitor against the office one. It's been consistently accurate.

 

[mo1905]

They are accurate enough to indicate high or low BP. As with blood glucose monitoring though, the best thing is to look for patterns/trends rather than single reading. There are so many variables that can effect both. I attended a First Aid course once and was informed by a doctor that even they get it wrong. There was a test done with a fancy training mannequin with the same BP throughout. The doctors results varied greatly.


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[Yolanda0522]

Forgot to say, if you're checking your own blood pressure then the left arm is the most accurate as closer to the heart.

yes, this is the tip. we use a digital blood pressure monitor and it's much more accurate if we take the arm close to the heart. here is the one we bought from Ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Arm-Digi...312?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item566c0edec0 it works great for about 6 month.

 

[WilliamEE]

One of the best things to do is take the blood pressure monitor with you to the GP once a year and compare to there readings.

Helps to determine how accurate the machine. The reason one should do it yearly is if the machine starts to give faulty readings you need to know.

One thing I find disturbing is that some doctors use monitors. I think they are fine for home use but doctors and hospitals should stick to the manual method.

 

[hungaj]

Well,
The home blood pressure monitors are not dedicated for accuracy.
But its dedicated for portable and easy to use.
But you can choose to use some most accurate blood pressure monitors here
Omron 10 Series
Generation Guard Blood Pressure Monitor
Ozeri CardioTech BP3T

 

[carina62]

My readings at home always differ with the doctor's - at GP always higher.

 

[philchap1]

My readings at home always differ with the doctor's - at GP always higher.

I'm the same, white coat syndrome, when at home normal blood pressure, pulse rate around 60, at the clinic or doctors blood pressure high pulse Rate over 100 and I even feel ill, I have one of those watches that takes your pulse and waiting to see the doctor it was around 106, as soon as I got back in the car it was back to 60 lol.