Mobile Monitoring of Blood Pressure

Hypertension or High Blood Pressure, it has been called a “Silent Killer”. Not because it quietly stalks its prey, ready to pounce, but because many of its victims are not even aware of the problem, until it’s too late. Dr. Thomas Pickering of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Ctr. explains. It is correct to refer to Hypertension as a “silent killer” because most people do not have any specific symptoms as a result of having high blood pressure unless it is extremely high, which is relatively rare. Traditionally high blood pressure is defined as a blood pressure greater then 140 over 90, and the reason why elevated blood pressure is of such concern is because it leads to stroke, heart attack, blood vessel disease, and kidney failure. When we measure blood pressure, we measure the force that the blood exerts against the vessel wall. And we measure it in 2 phases of the pumping action of the heart. So typically as you know you get two readings from your physician, the upper number the systolic blood pressure lets say 140, and the lower pressure the diastolic blood pressure let’s say 90.”