Mistakes That Boost Your Blood Pressure Reading
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, May 11, 2018 — Mum’s the word the next time you have your blood pressure checked.
Talking while the cuff is on can boost your blood pressure reading. So can a full bladder or crossing your legs, the American Heart Association says.
“These simple things can make a difference in whether or not a person is classified as having high blood pressure that requires treatment,” said Dr. Michael Hochman, a member of the heart association’s blood pressure task force. He’s also an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California.
“Knowing how to measure blood pressure accurately at home, and recognizing mistakes in the physician’s office, can help you manage your pressure and avoid unnecessary medication changes,” Hochman said in an AHA news release.
Here, the heart association outlines seven common culprits that can alter your blood pressure reading.
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What Should You Consider Before Purchasing A Blood Pressure Watch
Compatibility
Firstly, you need to determine with which devices your watch is compatible. Most models can connect with a mobile phone, tablet, and laptop, while some only support smartphones. It will allow you to read texts and answer calls directly through your watch. You can also view the stats of your health collected by the smartwatch in an app installed on your connected device.
These smart gadgets are usually compatible with Android and iOS. The best blood pressure watches can also connect wirelessly via Bluetooth and sync with your mobile device to automatically download health-related data on their dedicated Android/iOS app.
Design
Blood pressure watches come in various shapes, sizes, and colors. Since the main purpose of this device is to monitor your BP readings throughout the day, make sure to pick a design that matches your daily outfits. If you are not so concerned about whether it blends with your attire, then you must at least pay attention to the display size. Make sure it is not too small to read the stats easily. While you wont want to buy something bulky, you should invest in a watch with an elegant design and screen big enough to comfortably read the content.
Functionality
Besides monitoring blood pressure, make sure your watch also has some additional built-in functionalities. Most devices come with a pedometer, calorie counter, sleep monitor, reminder, and heart rate monitor, along with a BP tracker.
Water-Resistant
Battery Life
Price
Help Control Your Blood Pressure Through Exercise
Its well known that regular exercise can help your heart stay strong and healthy. You can use your Apple Watch to count your steps so you know if youre hitting your goal. Your watch can also track your heart rate with the sensor on the back to help you get fit youll know youre reaching your goals when your resting heart rate is getting lower.
With the Apple Watch, you can track your workouts the watch offers 12 workouts you can choose from, or you can begin any workout and the watch will automatically detect it. While working out, you can easily monitor your heart rate and set up heart-rate thresholds that notify you in case your heart rate is too high or low.
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Apple Plans To Add Blood Pressure Monitoring Thermometer To Smartwatch: Report
The Apple Watch is capable of scanning for heart conditions and calling for help after injuries. But Apple is working on a deeper set of features as part of the tech giant’s bigger ambitions in health monitoring.
Apple is working on new health-related features for its smartwatch, including a tool for blood pressure measurement and a thermometer to help with fertility planning, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plans and internal company documents.
The fertility feature could be available as soon as next year, but more ambitious health-related improvements arent expected before 2022.
According to internal documents and people familiar with Apple’s plans, the tech giant has broader ambitions for its smartwatch, including the ability to detect sleep apnea, provide medical guidance when it senses low blood oxygen levels and, perhaps one day, spot diabetes, per the WSJ article.
For the blood pressure measurement feature, the company is studying a way to measure the speed of the wave a heartbeat sends through a persons arteries using sensors in the Apple Watch, Winkler reported.
How Accurate Is Morepro Blood Pressure
Morepro is a smartwatch with health tracking and fitness monitoring technology. Morepro smartwatches are worth considering. here
Positive feedback from its users shows that Morepro is worth considering for monitoring your blood pressure. To put it to the test, the step tracking accuracy is about 94-96% accurate. I conducted several 100-count step tests just to confirm this percentage range.
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Can I Monitor My Sleep Habits With The Fitbit
Your Fitbit can keep tabs on your sleep.
The Fitbit app will show you your sleep pattern, which includes your time spent awake, your restless, and your time asleep.
Fitbit models that can track heart rate will be able to track your sleep stages as well.
In order to see your sleep info, you will need to sync your Fitbit every morning in order to see the previous nights sleep stats which include your sleep score either in the Fitbit app or on your wrist.
How Does Ecg Work In A Smartwatch
An ECG smartwatch can detect only atrial fibrillation and irregular heart rate only. Like a clinical-grade ECG Machine, it cannot give you a deep insight into your heart health or cardiac diseases. But it allows you to take an ECG or EKG instantly from your wrist and detect an AF, which can lead to a severe health condition or even a cardiac arrest if not treated.
An ECG Smartwatch comes with PPG sensors that sense the electrical pulses, which leads to a heartbeat. Then the ECG app in the smartwatch analyzes the data for any irregular heartbeat or atrial fibrillation.
Even though it does not replace any medical equipment, it helps you identify any variation in their heart rhythm. Early identification of these issues saves peoples lives.
A smartwatch ECG accuracy study suggests that The ECG feature also shows promise in AF detection and management and may enable users to take a more active role in their health care.
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We Believe That The Apple Watch Is Going To Be A Game Changer For Health Management
For the health industry and actually for all of us, the Apple Watch is great news. You would probably not buy it if all you need is a step tracker. But you might buy it because it is beautiful and offers some great day-to-day functionality. But then, without even noticing it, you suddenly have a device that monitors your pulse and activity levels around the clock. It knows how much you are walking, if you are stressed out and how well you are sleeping. It tracks all this data in Apple Health and enables Apps to give you tips and advice. It also enables you to record the vital signs you are already tracking, like your blood pressure, so you can be on top of your medical condition everywhere you go, even in places you donât always take your phone to like the gym or your shower.
Entering Daily Blood Pressure is Fast and Easy
Best Fitbit For Blood Pressure Monitoring Can Fitbit Measure Blood Pressure
I have been asked a lot what is the best Fitbit device for blood pressure monitoring and the truth is that as for now there isnt a Fitbit device that can monitor blood pressure or ECG.
However, if you are searching for a wearable blood pressure monitor in the shape of a wristband or a smartwatch than a very good Option comes from Omron and it is the Omrons HeartGuide Smartwatch.Another great option is a combination of the Apple Watch 4 alone or with a paired blood pressure monitor the QardioArm Blood Pressure Monitor.I will explain more about these 2 watches and will offer another great, cheaper third option.
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Can The Apple Watch Measure Your Blood Pressure
Mikkel Christensen
You cant measure blood pressure with Apple Watch, and I really doubt any other watch can do it.
Joseph Cox
As mentioned above the Apple Watch and to my knowledge there isnt a watch device available that is capable of actually measuring blood pressure.
However, if you wish to record your blood pressure values and have them stored in your medical information in the Apple Health app just write a simple ShortCut which can be run from the watch which asks for the values you tell it the values and it adds the values to the Health app.
These values can be added to a spreadsheet if you which and you can even add onto ShortCuts with a third party app call Charty which will provide a graph .
Erica Fuller
An app is not going to allow to do something you dont have the hardware to support . there are plenty of BP apps out there but the Apple Watch can not monitor BP period regardless of what app you put on your phone. you may be able to find a 3rd party watch band with app to do what your looking for.
Alison Bell
I bought a home blood pressure machine at the pharmacy. Just push a button and it takes your blood pressure on your upper arm. Then I enter the blood pressure reading into Apple Health app, manually into the blood pressure location on that app.
Stanley Eng
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Fitbit Starts Blood Pressure Trial As Big Names Go To War On Health Tech
Fitbit has announced it’s starting trials which could see blood pressure tracking arrive on its devices.
The trial is going to run via Fitbit Labs on Fitbit Sense, which will look at Pulse Arrival Time , which is a measure of how quickly blood takes to reach your wrist after its been pumped by the heart.
Fitbit has already found a link between PAT and blood pressure from an earlier study, and now it wants to get more data from a large-scale user study.
The Fitbit Labs app will be available for Sense users in the US, and those eligible will be prompted to take part.
Fitbit wants to look at the effect of PAT on things like eating, meditating, or taking a warm bath or shower. So that could mean that users are prompted to log behaviours not usually tracked by the Fitbit ecosystem.
The aim, Fitbit says, is to explore the potential link to tracking blood pressure.
And Fitbit also threw a bit of shade on Samsungs blood pressure monitoring, which requires cuff validation.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 with blood pressure monitoring
While the ability to easily measure and monitor blood pressure in a wearable, non-cuff application has been of great interest, it has been rather elusive to date, and the ability to accurately capture blood pressure readings in a non-cuff from the wrist-wearable has not yet been achieved, a company statement read.
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Whatis The Difference Between An Ecg/ekg Measurement And A Blood Pressure Monitormeasurement
Anelectrocardiogram also called an ECG or EKG is a quick, painless and safe testthat can provide information regarding your heart health.
TheECG/EKG measures the electric activity of your heart using electrodes ondifferent points on your skin.
Whatcan the ECG test tell us?
Each heartbeat is caused by an electric wave.The ECG can basically measure how long it takes to the wave to move from one side of the heart to another and the amount of the electrical activity passing through the heart.
What Is Blood Pressure
Blood pressure refers to the amount of pressure the blood pumping through your body puts on the walls of your arteries. It changes throughout the day, depending on various factors such as activity levels and stress. Two measurements show when taking your blood pressure. The top number is your systolic blood pressure, which is the force when your heart beats. Meanwhile, the bottom number, or diastolic reading, is the force between beats. In general, a healthy reading is 120/80. High blood pressure puts you at risk of significant health issues, including heart attacks, stroke, and kidney disease. However, lifestyle factors can help maintain healthy blood pressure. This includes a nutritious diet, regular exercise, a healthy weight, managing stress, and avoiding smoking.
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How Can A Smart Watch Measure Blood Pressure
Many people dont know How a smartwatch can measure blood pressure accurately. For a solution, you can read these reviews.Typically, smartwatches have a pulse transit time that measures your blood pressure through two sensors. The two sensors are the electrocardiogram ECG) sensor and the optical heart rate sensor. Based on these two sensors, the smartwatch measures the blood pressure of the human body.
Now lets find out how a smartwatch can measure blood pressure. First, wear your device well on the wrist, then turn on your device and wait a while. After a time, you will know your exact pressure measurement.
How A Future Fitbit May Monitor Your Blood Pressure
The ECG feature of the Fitbit Sense
Fitbit
Fitbit co-founder Eric Friedman has talked about the companys plans for a wearable blood pressure monitor feature in an interview with Wareable.
A lot of very smart researchers have looked at things like pulse arrival time, pulse wave velocity, a number of those metrics, trying to tie it back to blood pressure. There’s often been smoke, but no one’s actually found the fire, Friedman told the site. We’re working on our own kind of approaches.
His words appear to suggest Fitbit is working on bringing more out of ECG hardware rather than relying on discrete, specialized hardware for the purposes of on-the-go blood pressure monitoring.
Thats what actually what excites me more than new sensors, said Friedman, on the subject of looking at the potential of analytics such as pulse arrival time.
Blood pressure monitoring is likely to be the next new big thing in wearable features. The last was the ECG, which uses a pair of electrodes, usually distributed around the face of a watch, to collect data about the electrical signals of your body. These are used it to monitor your sinus rhythm.
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Apple Watch Series : Best Ecg Smartwatch
Apple Watch Series 7 is the latest smartwatch in the list of best ECG smartwatches in 2022. It comes with an FDA Approved electrocardiogram sensor and App that can produce an ECG report in 30 seconds.
Once the ECG or EKG is taken, the app assesses the rhythm and alerts you if there is an increased or decreased heart rate or atrial fibrillation.
After ECG, an Apple watch will give you any of the following results.
- Sinus Rythm: An ECG report with sinus rhythm means that the ECG is normal. But in case of chest pain or any other associated symptoms, you must seek medical help immediately.
- Atrial fibrillation: Atrial fibrillation in the ECG report means that the heart rhythm is not normal. It could be an early sign of a cardiac arrest or stroke. This is a severe medical condition and needs immediate medical attention, even if you do not have symptoms of chest pain or chest discomfort.
- High or low heart rate: An ECG reading can also detect the heart rate. The ECG tracking feature in an Apple watch works only if your heart rate is between 50-120 beats/minute.
- Inconclusive: Some time an Apple watch can not classify your heart rate because of multiple reasons. The factors that lead to inconclusive ECG recording are a pacemakers presence, not wearing your watch correctly on the wrist, etc.
Not sure about your ECG report? No worries! Just share your ECG readings with your doctor to seek expert opinions.
You can find more details about Apple watch ECG here.
Pros
- Expensive
Our Verdict
Health Benefits Of This Watch
Although this Versa is not a Fitbit blood pressure monitoring watch, it has more to health than fitness. Starting from the 24/7 heart rate tracking, with Fitbits enhanced PurePulse® 2.0 technology, youll always see your resting heart rate trends and cardio fitness level in anything to do.
Your heart beat has always been key health indicator, so Versa 3 can tell if youre having a high and low heart rate. Wear it and youll always get the chance to check if your heart beats above or below threshold.
Your heart rate variability is trackable, with ability to show the trend of your heart health for the past weeks. This metric is absolutely great advantage for people who want to regularly check their body for potential stress, and fatigue.
Most people love Versa for sports because of the Oxygen Saturation Monitoring during gym or outdoor exercises. Most athletic guys depend on this feature to estimate level of oxygen in their blood during long runs and highly intense trainings. The SPO2 data is an indication to make important changes, like resting between activities.
Your oxygen intake is absolutely vital too. This health watch can automatically measure your breathing rate as you run on a treadmill, as your work and as you sleep. With guided breathing sessions, you understand your wellness pretty much easily.
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Asus Vivowatch Bp A Cheap Option With An Accurate Ecg Feature And A Built
The second one is the quite new device by Asus, the Asus VivoWatch BP which is using a combination of EKG and PPG sensors to achieve a reading of the heart rate and health.
Both of the watches can serve also as fitness trackers as they have the ability to monitor heart rate, sleep patterns and activity.
The Asus is not a match to the amazing Apple watch 4 when referring to smartwatch abilities and features.However, the ECG feature will provide very accurate data, lots of users claimed that the apple watch 4 and this watch gave almost the same results in the ECG tests.
When taking into consideration that the Vivowatch BP comes with a built-in GPS and costs about half of the Apple Watch 4, it makes sense to think of it as your next purchase.
The main Con of this device is that it is a bit bulky, so if the size of the watch is a big issue for you then it might be your deal-breaker.
I dont have too much information regarding the accuracy of the Asus device and it is too early to make big assumptions about it, but from a first look, it looks too bulky with a very poor display.