Monitoring BP at home useful

Monitoring blood pressure readings regularly at home is better than measuring it at the doctor's office, and is reliable when using a portable recorder over 24 hours. Uncontrolled high blood pressure eventually leads to enlargement of the main pumping chamber of the heart, which is measured by the left ventricular mass index (LVMI). Researchers from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and the State University of New York-Stony Brook studied 163 patients to analyse which type of blood pressure readings most closely reflected the LVMI. The recorded the BP at home, doctor's clinic, ambulatory readings in 163 patients with either normal BP or untreated mild hypertension. Echocardiography was done to evaluate LVMI. All subjects first underwent 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Three blood pressure measurements were taken the next day in the doctor's clinic, after the patients had rested for five minutes. The participants then measured their own blood pressures at home using an automatic, oscillometric BP measuring device over a 10-week period, in the morning and the evening. They also took additional readings at home, two days per week for ten weeks. Only age, sex and home blood pressure monitoring were significant predictors of LVMI. This was true only after the first 12 home measurements, meaning that accuracy increased as more readings were averaged. People are usually willing to measure their blood pressure at home. Three readings are normally recommended in succession each time (about 30 seconds between readings), one set first thing in the morning, and another at night before going to bed. Those just starting should take readings over three days per week for two weeks. If the situation is stable, they can be much less frequent. However, some people become very anxious and compulsively keep taking readings. It should be stressed that there will be some high and some low readings. The findings suggest that home monitoring is the best way of looking at changes over long periods of time and for providing information needed for medication adjustments.