Raised blood pressure (BP) is a condition that affect 1.5 million Norwegians (1.13 billion people worldwide). It is a major cause of premature deaths worldwide. Better monitoring of BP and its variations is a key action to identify and help individuals at risk. However, state-of-the-art BP measurements are unsatisfactory as they are limited to intermittent measurements (3-4 per hour). The inflatable cuff around the upper arm may cause stress and pain. It is often necessary to measure BP over a longer period, typically 24 hours, and the patient must carry measuring equipment during the whole period. The equipment currently available for these measurements disturbs and limits normal daily life. When used during the night, it often leads to interrupted sleep. Pain, stress and disrupted sleep induced by the equipment may result in incorrect evaluation of blood pressure.
The underlying idea of the project is to develop a wearable cuff-less sensor device - IsenseU – that provides BP measurements every heartbeat based on electrical and optical physiological measurements in the chest area. Health practitioners and the patient will have immediate access to measurements via diagnostics and self-management tools. This complete wireless system, called HyperSension, will provide a completely new and more immediate understanding of how medication, rest and activity affects the patients' BP levels, and will also play an important role in optimal drug treatment.
All though research is still needed to realize the innovation, the basic concept and technology have been verified and demonstrated through a FP7 EU project (Seeberg 2017, Austad 2016). This technology has formed the basis for the IsenseU wearable device.
The technology company Aidee Health AS is the project owner of HyperSension. Project partners are SINTEF, a leader in sensor development and research, OUS (Oslo University Hospital), a world leader in blood pressure research and Sandefjord Helsepark, a medical professional environment.
References
- Heimark, S., et al. (2021). Blood pressure altering method affects correlation with pulse arrival time. Blood Pressure Monitoring.
- Seeberg T.M. et al. IEEE Tran. on Biom. Eng., Vol. 64 No. 7, 1469-1478, July 2017.
- Austad H.O. et al. " Proc. from 9th intern conf. on Biomedical Electronics and Devices, Rome. 2016.