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Thuis bloeddruk meten.*
Thuis bloeddruk meten is een waardevolle
aanvulling op het meten bij de arts en vaak zelfs beter.
Wel moet je dit goed en op gezette tijden,
overdag en ‘s-avonds doen. Normaal is dat ’s-avonds de bloeddruk wat lager
is dan overdag, is deze continu wat hoger dan overdag dan kan dit mogelijk
duiden op een verhoogde kans op hart- en vaatproblemen.
At-home
blood pressure readings effective
Blood pressure measurements taken at home by patients are a valuable addition to
blood pressure measurements taken in the physician's office. In some cases,
at-home measurements may even predict cardiovascular risk better than readings
from the physician's office alone.
These findings
were released by the American Heart Association as part of the group's effort to
update its 1993 Recommendations for Blood Pressure Measurement in Humans. The
updated recommendations were published in Hypertension: Journal of the
American Heart Association.
The new findings
increase the role that at-home, ambulatory blood pressure measurements can play in managing heart disease. The
AHA found that blood pressure measurements taken in a physician's office are
frequently wrong.
"We've found
that blood pressure measurements taken by doctors in their offices may actually
be unreliable in many patients," said lead author Thomas G. Pickering,
M.D., director of the Behavioral Cardiovascular Health and Hypertension Program
at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
Ambulatory,
at-home blood pressure monitoring measures blood pressure at regular intervals
throughout the day and night. This allows patients to keep a journal of blood
pressure fluctuations and to record blood pressure readings at night, when blood
pressure typically drops slightly. Research has shown that elevated blood
pressure readings at night are associated with elevated cardiovascular risk.
High blood pressure is defined as consistent systolic pressure of 140 mm/Hg or higher or diastolic pressure of 90 mm/Hg or higher. According to the American Heart Association, at least 65 million Americans - or almost one third of adults - have high blood pressure. Millions more are considered to have pre-hypertension, or blood pressure between 120-139 mm/Hg systolic and 80-90 mm/Hg. (Jan. 2005)