AHA Updates Recommendations for BP Measurements

The American Heart Association has updated its 1993 recommendations for blood pressure measurements. The new guidelines that are published in the February issue of Hypertension emphasize out-of-office blood pressure readings, proper cuff size, and more. 'Since the last statement, there have been huge changes in the technology used to measure blood pressure and in our knowledge about the significance of different measurements,' lead author Thomas G. Pickering, MD, DPhil, from Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, says in a news release. 'We've found that blood pressure measurements taken by doctors in their offices may actually be unreliable in many patients. For that reason, there is wider acceptance of blood pressure readings taken by patients in their homes, and of 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.