Beyond the Cuff: State-of-the-Art on Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring
Yaheya Shafti1, Steven Hughes1, William Taylor1
1James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
Insights
Cuffless blood pressure (BP) monitoring offers continuous, non-invasive alternatives to traditional cuffs. Emerging technologies show promise but require further development for clinical accuracy across diverse populations.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Medical Devices
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring is vital for hypertension management and patient care.
- Traditional cuff-based BP monitoring methods are invasive, uncomfortable, and unsuitable for continuous tracking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically review emerging cuffless blood pressure (BP) monitoring technologies.
- To provide a unifying taxonomy of sensing modalities, measurement principles, and signal processing techniques.
- To identify challenges and future directions for scalable, explainable, and regulatory-compliant BP monitoring.
Main Methods:
- Survey of advanced cuffless BP monitoring technologies including radar, optical, acoustic, and capacitive sensors.
- Analysis of Machine Learning (ML) and sensor fusion approaches for enhanced predictive accuracy.
- Evaluation of methods addressing subject-specific calibration, motion artifacts, and international validation standards.
Main Results:
- Cuffless technologies offer potential for continuous, non-invasive BP estimation in remote health monitoring and ambient clinical intelligence.
- ML and sensor fusion enhance predictive accuracy, but clinical acceptability across diverse populations and real-world conditions remains a challenge.
- Performance benchmarks against gold standards are presented, highlighting current limitations.
Conclusions:
- Cuffless BP monitoring presents a promising alternative to traditional methods, with significant advancements in sensor technology and data analysis.
- Further research is crucial to overcome challenges in accuracy, generalizability, and regulatory compliance for widespread clinical adoption.
- Future systems should focus on scalability, explainability, and adherence to international validation standards.
Abstract:
Blood pressure (BP) monitoring is crucial for identifying high BP (hypertension) and is an important aspect of patient care. However, traditional cuff-based methods for BP monitoring are unsuitable for continuous monitoring and can cause discomfort to patients. This survey critically examines the emerging field of cuffless BP monitoring, highlighting advances beyond traditional cuff-based methods. Technologies such as radar, optical, acoustic, and capacitive sensors offer the potential for continuous, non-invasive BP estimation, enabling applications in remote health monitoring and ambient clinical intelligence. We introduce a unifying taxonomy covering sensing modalities, physiological measurement principles, signal processing techniques, and translational challenges. Emphasis is placed on methods that eliminate subject-specific calibration, overcome motion artifacts, and satisfy international validation standards. The review also analyses Machine Learning (ML) and sensor fusion approaches that enhance predictive accuracy. Despite encouraging results, challenges remain in achieving clinically acceptable accuracy across diverse populations and real-world conditions. This work delineates the current landscape, benchmarks performance against gold standards, and identifies key future directions for scalable, explainable, and regulatory-compliant BP monitoring systems.
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