Noninvasive Pressure Measurements

Abstract

Blood pressure measurement started in the eighteenth century. In 1773, an English theologian and scientist Stephan Hales measured a horse’s mean blood pressure directly without anaesthetic. Blood pressure measurement has since improved through a succession of scientific studies. Although the method of reference continues to be intra-arterial catheterisation, clinicians now have noninvasive methods at their disposal, which allow them to measure the mean, diastolic and systolic blood pressures either manually or automatically. More recently, devices have appeared on the market that allow a continuous blood pressure curve to be recorded, which is very close to the actual intra-arterial pressure curve.