Accuracy validation of a newly developed cuffless blood pressure estimation method using only an iPhone

The mainstream method for cuffless blood pressure is that based on pulse transit time. However, there are many inconveniences in this method such as requiring simultaneous measurement of electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram and frequent calibration using a cuff sphygmomanometer. So, we developed a far simpler method to estimate blood pressure only using a heart rate and modified normalized pulse volume that can be measured using a smartphone alone. In this study, we examined its accuracy against conventional brachial cuff sphygmomanometer. Mental arithmetic task was used to alter blood pressure in 13 healthy subjects. Analysis revealed that the correlation coefficients between these two were.73,.73, and.72 for mean blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. Results suggest that this simple method can yield moderately reliable measures of blood pressure. (132/150).