Artifacts annotations in anesthesia blood pressure data by man and machine

Physiologic data from anesthesia monitors are automatically captured. Yet erroneous data are stored in the process as well. While this is not interfering with clinical care, research can be affected. Researchers should find ways to remove artifacts. The aim of the present study was to compare different artifact annotation strategies, and to...

Effectiveness of a Worksite Intervention for Male Construction Workers on Dietary and Physical Activity Behaviors, Body Mass Index, and Health Outcomes: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of an individually tailored intervention for improvement in lifestyle behavior, health indicators, and prevention and reduction of overweight among construction workers. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Various blue-collar departments of a large construction company in the Netherlands....

Aortic pressure-area relation in Marfan patients with and without β blocking agents: A new non-invasive approach

Objective: To investigate the heterogeneous response to β blockade in patients with Marfan syndrome by non-invasive assessment of the aortic pressure-area curve. Design and patients: 25 patients with the Marfan syndrome who used β blocking agents (mean (SD) age, 29 (10) years; 20 men, five women), seven without β blockade (34 (14) years; five...

Comparison of Portapres® with standard sphygmomanometry in pregnancy

Background: Continuous beat-to-beat noninvasive blood pressure (BP) measurement is possible with Portapres®. It constructs finger arterial waveforms beat-to-beat. Dedicated software is used to analyze the arterial waveforms. A new technique has been developed to reconstruct brachial intraarterial pressure that uses return to flow (RTF). This...

Arterial stiffness as underlying mechanism of disagreement between an oscillometric blood pressure monitor and a sphygmomanometer

Oscillometric blood pressure devices tend to overestimate systolic blood pressure and underestimate diastolic blood pressure compared with sphygmomanometers. Recent studies indicate that discrepancies in performance between these devices may differ between healthy and diabetic subjects. Arterial stiffness in diabetics could be the underlying...

Broad band spectral analysis of 24 h continuous finger blood pressure: Comparison with intra-arterial recordings

The present study compares the spectral characteristics of 24-h blood pressure variability estimated invasively at the brachial artery level with those estimated by measurement of blood pressure at the finger artery using the non-invasive Portapres device. Broad-band spectra (from 3 x 10^-5 to 0.5 Hz) were derived from both finger and...

Tyrosine improves cognitive performance and reduces blood pressure in cadets after one week of combat training course

The effect of the amino acid tyrosine on cognitive task performance were studied on a group of 21 cadets during a demanding military combat training course. In addition, the effects on mood, blood pressure and the norepinephrine metabolite MHPG were determined. Ten subjects received five daily doses of a protein-rich drink containing 2 g...

Estimation of blood pressure variability from 24-hour ambulatory finger blood pressure

Portapres is a noninvasive, beat-to-beat finger blood pressure (BP) monitor that has been shown to accurately estimate 24-hour intra-arterial BP at normal and high BPs. However, no information is available on the ability of this device to accurately track ambulatory BP variability. In 20 ambulatory normotensive and hypertensive subjects, we...

Fifteen years experience with finger arterial pressure monitoring: Assessment of the technology

We review the Finapres technology, embodied in several TNO-prototypes and in the Ohmeda 2300 and 2300e Finapres NIBP. Finapres is an acronym for FINger Arterial PRESsure, the device delivers a continuous finger arterial pressure waveform. Many papers report on the accuracy of the device in comparison with intra-arterial or with noninvasive but...

Variability of near-fainting responses in healthy 6-16-year-old subjects

1. Fainting is a common phenomenon in young subjects, but the final events before the actual faint are not well known. The aim of the present study was to study the inter-individual variability of haemodynamic events associated with near-fainting in children and teenagers. 2. Sixty-eight healthy subjects (aged 6-16 years) performed a 70°tilt-up...

Finapres tracking of systolic pressure and baroreflex sensitivity improved by waveform filtering

Objective. Arterial pressure waveforms distort between brachial and finger arteries, causing differences mainly in systolic pressure. Distortion, reportedly, can be removed by applying a waveform filter to the finger pressure. Design. We analysed the data from two studies that detected discrepancies in systolic tracking between Finapres and...