Low cost human pulse wave velocity automated measuring device

Abstract

Arteriosclerosis evaluation is essential for the clinical diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is considered as the independent predictors of assessing arterial stiffness. Basing on the principles of PWV measurement and equivalent electric circuit model of artery, we designed a low cost noninvasive human pulse wave velocity measuring device. Its clinical experiment involving 123 subjects was carried out. The device can acquire pulse wave signals by means of a self-made measurement circuit and PWV is calculated by custom-designed software based on LabVIEW. Clinical experiment shows that PWV can reflect the differences between hypertension and normal blood pressure. In addition, of the 123 subjects, 27 were detected by this device to have a tendency of artery hardening, 23 of them were validated by Doppler ultrasound diagnostic device. The conformity of the two methods was up to 85.16%. This study verified the validity and reliability of the device. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.