Abstract
Measurement of blood pressure is a routine procedure in dental treatment for elderly patients. Recently, automatic sphygmomanometers have become common, because of the simplicity of handing. To evaluate the practical applicability of automatic sphygmomanometers in dentistry, we examined how the blood pressure measured on a dental chair with automatic sphygmomanometers varied with the types of sphygmomanometers. In addition, we examined to what extent the blood pressure measured by ausculation with a conventional mercury sphygmomanometer correlated to the values obtained with automatic sphygmomanometers .
A total of 100 subjects were used. They consisted of 50 young people (25 males and 25 females) in their twenties and 50 old people (25 males and 25 famales) aged over 65 years. Threetypes of automatic sphygmomanometer were used; upper-arm type, wrist type and finger type. These were oscillometric devices. Blood pressure was measured in two body positions;sitting and supine positions.
The blood Pressure obtained with the finger type was higher than that obtained byausculation with a mercury sphygmomanometer. The value obtained with the upper-armtype was lower than that obtained by ausculation. The value obtained with the wrist type wasalmost the as that obtained by ausculation. Significant positive correlation was found betweenthe values obtained with the three types of automatic sphygmomanometer and the valueobtained with a mercury sphygmomanometer. The scattering of blood pressure values wasslightest when measured with the mercury sphygmomanometer, followed by the upper-armtype and then by the wrist type. The scattering was largest with the finger type .
The above results suggest that in clinical application of automatic sphygmomanometer indentistry, it is necessary to be acquainted with the actual differences in value by the types ofsphygmomanometer, including the mercury type, and to be aware that measurement with thefinger type can hardly be expected to be reliable.
