Non invasive and minimally intrusive blood pressure estimates

<p>Currently, health disorders related to Blood Pressure (BP) fluctuations are within the most prevalent and of higher social and economic impact in the world. A continuous and routinary monitoring of the BP can contribute to the early identification of risk factors, and consequently, would help to prevent potential cardiovascular diseases. <br> <br> BP measurement methods based on the cuff are of widespread use today. The monitoring based on this technology is intrusive and cannot be made continuously, which is of fundamental importance to diagnose Hypertension accurately. Due to the discomfort, inconvenience and intrusiveness of the cuff-based measurements of BP most people undergo monitoring only when they present symptoms of cardiovascular problems and a high proportion of them do not complete the monitoring protocol. <br> <br> In order to provide a less intrusive technology for non-invasive and continuous BP monitoring, many researchers aimed to estimate the BP from Pulse Waveforms (PW), recorded using plethysmography, ultrasound, and tonometry. Some BP estimation methods based on these technologies have been successfully implemented in commercial products. <br> <br> However, the BP estimation from PW is still an open research problem. The hemodynamic behavior of people is complex and highly variable within and between subjects. This makes the estimation of BP from PW very challenging from the mathematical and computational modeling perspectives. <br> <br> For this reason we provide a dataset from two healthy subjects. The experimental paradigm is explained in advance. Data were acquired by using the Finapres® NOVA which is a non-invasive continuous blood pressure monitor. <br> <br> The data contains the following columns: <br> <br> - Timeline of the acquisition.<br> - The PPG (Photoplethysmography) signal measured in the right hand.<br> - The PPG (Photoplethysmography) signal measured in the foot.<br> - The arterial pressure estimated by Finapres® NOVA.<br> - The ECG signal.<br> - The occurrence of the handgrip maneuver on the specific time instant.