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Auscl-D: a mercury-free digital auscultatory sphygmomanometer
Vishal Kumar1, Ravinder Kumar1, Mohit Kumar1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, India.
Insights
A new digital sphygmomanometer, Auscl-D, offers accurate blood pressure (BP) measurement. This low-cost, portable device provides a reliable, mercury-free alternative to traditional BP monitors.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Medical Devices
- Cardiovascular Health
Background:
- Hypertension affects over a quarter of the global population, leading to premature deaths.
- Inaccurate blood pressure measurements contribute to hypertension misdiagnosis.
- Existing sphygmomanometers have limitations including poor reliability, performance degradation, and environmental concerns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a low-cost, portable, and accurate digital sphygmomanometer.
- To create a mercury-free alternative to traditional blood pressure measurement devices.
- To assess the performance of the proposed device against established methods.
Main Methods:
- Development of a digital sphygmomanometer (Auscl-D) using readily available components and auscultation-based measurement.
- Comparison of Auscl-D's accuracy with mercury sphygmomanometers (gold standard).
- Preliminary clinical trials at Dayanand Medical College & Hospital comparing Auscl-D with aneroid and oscillometric devices.
Main Results:
- The Auscl-D demonstrated accuracy comparable to mercury sphygmomanometers.
- Test results showed good agreement for systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements between Auscl-D, aneroid, and oscillometric devices.
- The device is designed for easy manufacturing, even in remote locations.
Conclusions:
- The Auscl-D presents a viable low-cost, highly portable replacement for conventional sphygmomanometers.
- The proposed device addresses toxicity and reliability issues associated with current BP measurement tools.
- Auscl-D offers a promising solution for accurate and accessible blood pressure monitoring worldwide.
Abstract:
More than quarter of world's population is consumed by hypertension, leading to premature death of thousands of people per year across the globe. One of the major reasons behind hypertension misdiagnosis is inaccurate blood pressure (BP) measurements, which can be attributed to various human or instrumentation errors. Currently used BP measuring sphygmomanometers, suffers from poor reliability, performance deterioration over time or are unable to meet environmental protection protocols. In this article, we propose a low-cost, highly portable, light-weight, easily manufacturable, battery operated, mercury free, auscultation based digital sphygmomanometer - Auscl-D, for easy and accurate BP measurements. The proposed device can be made from easily available components with cheap manufacturing processes available throughout globe, even in remote areas. The device demonstrated to have accuracy comparable to mercury sphygmomanometer, which is the gold-standard for BP measurements. The preliminary clinical trials were conducted at Dayanand Medical College & Hospital (DMCH) (Ludhiana, India), to compare the performance of proposed device with commonly used aneroid sphygmomanometers employing the auscultatory method and validated oscillometric sphygmomanometers from MicroLife. The test results show good agreement for systolic and diastolic BP measurements taken using Auscl-D device compared to the aneroid and oscillometric types. This shows the potential of proposed design to serve as low-cost, highly portable replacement for conventionally used sphygmomanometers, without the toxicity and reliability issues.
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