[Measuring blood pressure at the upper arm and wrist: are there differences?]

Reliability and accuracy of a wrist and an upper arm sphygmomanometer were compared. Only in one of 27 persons were measurements at the wrist impossible. The 26 remaining volunteers showed good agreement between arm and wrist measurement (118/71 and 118/69 mmHg respectively). The variance was expectedly larger for systolic than diastolic values (10 vs 8 mmHg). As expected the correlation between the two methods was high (0.83 for systolic, 0.75 for diastolic values). Reproducibility of measurements was also equivalent for both methods. Devices for blood pressure measurements at the wrist are thus suitable. In order to identify individuals in which measurements at the wrist are impossible for technical reasons comparative measurements on the upper arm should precede the recommendation for a wrist device.