Enhancing the estimation of blood pressure using pulse arrival time and two confounding factors

A new method of blood pressure (BP) estimation using multiple regression with pulse arrival time (PAT) and two confounding factors was evaluated in clinical and unconstrained monitoring situations. For the first analysis with clinical data, electrocardiogram (ECG), photoplethysmogram (PPG) and invasive BP signals were obtained by a conventional patient monitoring device during surgery. In the second analysis, ECG, PPG and non-invasive BP were measured using systems developed to obtain data under conditions in which the subject was not constrained. To enhance the performance of BP estimation methods, heart rate (HR) and arterial stiffness were considered as confounding factors in regression analysis. The PAT and HR were easily extracted from ECG and PPG signals. For arterial stiffness, the duration from the maximum derivative point to the maximum of the dicrotic notch in the PPG signal, a parameter called TDB, was employed. In two experiments that normally cause BP variation, the correlation between measured BP and the estimated BP was investigated. Multiple-regression analysis with the two confounding factors improved correlation coefficients for diastolic blood pressure and systolic blood pressure to acceptable confidence levels, compared to existing methods that consider PAT only. In addition, reproducibility for the proposed method was determined using constructed test sets. Our results demonstrate that non-invasive, non-intrusive BP estimation can be obtained using methods that can be applied in both clinical and daily healthcare situations.