Blood Pressure, Uncuffed

What if taking daily blood pressure to monitor hypertension were as easy as taking a selfie? Researchers at Michigan State University hope to free patients to take their blood pressure anywhere, just by touching the screens of their smartphones.

An app created by the research team for the study measures a patient’s finger size and the pressure on the screen. With the help of sensors in the phone and a prototype phone case, the app calculates blood pressure similarly to a traditional device, such as a finger blood pressure monitor or an arm cuff. In trials, the app was both comparable to traditional readings from finger monitors and easy for patients to use, suggesting promise for future research.

“We were pleased to see that 90 percent of the people trying it were able to do it easily after just one or two practice tries,” says lead researcher Dr. Ramakrishna Mukkamala.

Read more from Michigan State University. Read the full study in Scientific Reports.