On 5-9-2012 22:00, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> It still troubles me that here in the 21st century, the only way to
>>> actually measure a person's blood pressure is [still] to crush their arm
>>> until no blood reaches it, and measure how much force it takes to do
>>> that. o_O
>>
>> nope. There are things like finger blood pressure meters (finapres and
>> similar). NOn invasive and continuous and therefore used e.g in the OR.
>
> I know they can measure blood oxygen saturation with a finger clamp.
> (After all, blood helpfully changes colour depending on its degree of
> saturation, and human flesh is fairly transparent at optical
> wavelengths.) But I'm not aware of any such system that can do this for
> blood /pressure/ measurements.

well, now you are, you should have used a past tense.

>
>> But the method you describe is the more easy and cheap one.
>> Now you are unemployed I suggest you do your research before making any
>> sweeping statement. ;)
>
> In particular, I know a guy who has high blood pressure. The doctor has
> given him this very expensive-looking piece of automated blood pressure
> measurement equipment. Now why would anybody design such a complicated
> and expensive apparatus if a simple finger clamp could do the same job
> with a few light sensors?

Because it is not simple? It is for a patient more easy to screw up the 
finger measurement than the arm cuff. You need to measure at the level 
of the heart. Easy for a sitting/standing/lying person with the cuff on 
the upper arm. The only way to do it wrong would be to lay down on your 
side, not a very likely error. For the finger measurement lying down is 
almost the only option.
Even if it does look expensive, it may not be and the finger measurement 
system it not cheap and I am not even sure you can buy it as a private 
person giving that it needs calibration and some training to use.



-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

Post a reply to this message