J024044 Verification of reflected pressure pulse waves at bifurcation of one-dimensional arterial vascular model of an arm

Abstract

The pulse diagnosis is one of medical techniques in the traditional Chinese medicine. In the pulse diagnosis, a doctor put fingers onto radial artery of a patient and diagnoses diseases from the tactile sense of the pulse waves detected by the fingers with various indentation patterns of the artery. This diagnosis is a simple and non-invasive. And it is also said to be able to detect decline of the health. We have developed one dimensional mathematical model of arterial blood flow in an arm to reproduce the indentation of the radial artery by a finger, expecting essence of the diagnosis is in the change of the pulse waves by the indentation. This model takes into consideration bifurcation and reconnection of radial and ulnar arteries. In this research, we modified this model to quantitatively reproduce reflection of pressure waves at the bifurcation and reconnection, and it was verified by comparing the numerical result with analytical solution derived from characteristic impedance of the arteries.