Estimation of Absolute Blood Pressure Using Video Images Captured at Different Heights from the Heart

Smartphones and Video Cameras: Future Methods for Blood Pressure Measurement

Regular blood pressure (BP) monitoring enables earlier detection of hypertension and reduces cardiovascular disease. Cuff-based BP measurements require equipment that is inconvenient for some individuals and deters regular home-based monitoring. Since smartphones contain sensors such as video cameras that detect arterial pulsations, they could also be used to assess cardiovascular health. Researchers have developed a variety of image processing and machine learning techniques for predicting BP via smartphone or video camera. This review highlights research behind smartphone and video camera methods for measuring BP. These methods may in future be used at home or in clinics, but must be tested over a larger range of BP and lighting conditions. The review concludes with a discussion of the advantages of the various techniques, their potential clinical applications, and future directions and challenges. Video cameras may potentially measure multiple cardiovascular metrics including and beyond BP, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Evaluation of the Pulse wave in the face for the patients with rotary blood pump (RP) in the Outpatient clinic

Rotary blood pump (RP) is one of the most important devices in the treatment of profound heart failure and is known to reduce the pulse in the blood pressure waveform, especially when it is used for axial flow. In an outpatient clinic, checking the pulse of a patient implanted with an RP can help diagnose the patient's condition. For that purpose, animal experiments with healthy adult goats implanted with the EVAHEART system were carried out after obtaining ethical committee approval. Visual imaging of the goats' faces was recorded using a video camera. The pulse waves were clearly recorded using the newly developed pulse diagnosis system with video imaging and compared with laser Doppler flowmeter and time series data. Spectral analysis of the time series data showed the usefulness of video imaging from outside the body. Clinical applications are planned, and this newly developed method is expected to be a useful diagnostic method for evaluating the cardiac function in patients implanted with RPs in the future.