Inter-arm blood pressure difference in post-stroke patients with hemiparesis

The aim of this study was to investigate that inter-arm blood pressure (BP) difference (IAD) and reference arm in 420 post-stroke patients with hemiparesis. Synchronous bilateral-arm BP was measured with two automatic BP devices, and the systolic BP difference of ≥10 mm Hg was recorded as increased sIAD. The arm with higher systolic BP (SBP) was assigned as the reference arm. Our results showed that the prevalence of sIAD was 18.1% in the total group. The paretic arms had similar mean SBP levels (133.6±18.4 vs. 133.8±18.4 mm Hg, NS) and DBP (77.8±11.5 vs. 77.2±10.9 mm Hg, NS) as compared with the unaffected arms. The detection rate of hypertension or uncontrolled hypertension on the SBP values of the reference arm was higher than that on the unaffected arm (41.8% vs. 36.3%). It is concluded that in the post-stroke patients with hemiparesis in the rehabilitation period, the prevalence of sIAD ≥10 mmHg was relatively higher, and using the unaffected arm, rather than the unaffected arm, for BP measurement could induce correctly detection of hypertension.