Hypertension in Children: The Importance of Patient Interaction

As a follow-up to our post, "Hypertension in Children: An Easier Method of Identification", the measurement and diagnosis of high blood pressure in children brings up another issue...the importance of how blood pressure is measured. Automated measurement is so prevalent with the use of home BP devices and patient monitors in hospitals and clinics that it is often assumed that automated techniques must always match the tried-and-true approach of manual measurement with a sphygmomanometer. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

The study on hypertension in children by the MetroHealth Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University highlights this issue.

"If a reading shows up as abnormal based on the new chart, Kaelber said the child should have a manual blood pressure reading (because it is more accurate than an automatic blood pressure cuff reading), and then have their height percentile  checked on the more complicated table."

While SunTech constantly strives to improve technology to make better medical products or measure BP more accurately, we should not forget that practicing medicine is about interacting with people. An automated BP device can adequately and reliably measure BP on a majority of people in a variety of different scenarios, but it will never replace careful and thoughtful measurement by a clinician who has sufficient time to spend with a patient.

Read the full article here:
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2009/05/metrohealth_medical_center_cas.html