Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is a relatively new technique for assessing a person’s blood pressure. ABPM allows a healthcare provider to assess your blood pressure during your routine daily living, instead of when you are sitting nervously on the healthcare provider's examination table.
ABPM is most helpful in deciding whether a person actually has hypertension when the blood pressure readings taken in the healthcare provider's office are highly variable or are otherwise puzzling. In particular, ABPM has been used to assess people with “white coat hypertension” triggered by the stress of a medical appointment.
How It Works
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is accomplished with a special device that consists of a blood pressure cuff that is worn on your arm and is attached to a small recording device that you wear on your belt.1 You wear the ABPM device for either 24 or 48 hours, and it records your blood pressure periodically (usually at 15-minute or 30-minute intervals) throughout that period, during your routine daily activities and while you are sleeping.
So the ABPM provides your healthcare provider with a complete record of your blood pressure for a one- or two-day period.
The information the ABPM provides is fundamentally different from the information the healthcare provider gets by taking your blood pressure in the office. The office blood pressure recording is a single value that is meant to reflect your blood pressure during quiet rest (which explains why, given the hectic environment of most healthcare providers' offices these days, the readings may not always be entirely accurate).
ABPM, in contrast, reports your blood pressures as they are obtained through a wide range of situations and activities—from running to catch a bus to sleep. And it is normal for a person’s blood pressure to fluctuate tremendously during the many activities a person typically performs in a day. So, unlike the blood pressure you get in the healthcare provider’s office, the ABPM does not report merely a single value for systolic and diastolic blood pressure that supposedly represents your official “blood pressure.” Instead, it reports an entire range of (often) widely variable values throughout the course of a day or longer.
Disclaimer: The information provided here should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. The information is provided solely for educational purpose and should not be considered a substitute for medical advice.
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