MIAMI – When it comes to our overall health we’re encouraged to monitor and manage many numbers, key among them, blood pressure levels.
Now a new tool that’s helping doctors more definitively diagnosis hypertension early on, possibly preventing long term health problems.
Blood pressure cuffs are standard in just about every doctor’s office and vital for diagnosing a condition that’s affecting a growing number of Americans.
“Hypertension or high blood pressure is a public health problem, enormous. More than half of the population here in the United States have hypertension, that’s over a hundred million people,” Dr. Maria Delgado, an expert in hypertension with UHealth has been working with the latest technology to measure blood pressure changes.
Rather than a bothersome cuff, it’s a virtually unnoticeable patch that’s worn for a 24-hour period.
“And everybody asks me ‘what do you mean by a patch’ because you’re not pushing anything. So instead of pressure what you do is send light signals that cross your skin and bounce against the big artery in your heart and that bounces back so that’s a measurement of blood pressure,” Delgado said.
While 29-year-old Bianca Solis is in good health, her grandparents suffered from high blood pressure.
Through her job as a patient access coordinator at UHealth she didn’t hesitate when offered the chance to try the patch.
“You have no idea how many patients look at me and say don’t wait until it’s too late. Take care of yourself now,” Solis said.
“I was very excited, and I thought it was a great opportunity,” she added.
Although not surprised, Solis was pleased that her numbers came back well in the normal range.
“I think that’s the biggest message I can take from working with people of all ages but being so young I think maybe I just realized what I do now it will have an impact later on,” she said.
The patch actually sends data back to the doctor’s office so when patients have completed the 24-hour period, they simple remove it and throw it away so there’s no need to visit the doctor just to return the device.