Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring as a Basis for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) – Review of Methodologies and Devices

Blood pressure (BP) is a bio-physiological signal that can provide very useful information regarding human’s general health. High or low blood pressure or its rapid fluctuations can be associated to various diseases or conditions. Nowadays, high blood pressure is considered to be an important health risk factor and major cause of various health problems worldwide. High blood pressure may precede serious heart diseases, stroke and kidney failure. Accurate blood pressure measurement and monitoring plays fundamental role in diagnosis, prevention and treatment of these diseases. Blood pressure is usually measured in the hospitals, as a part of a standard medical routine. However, there is an increasing demand for methodologies, systems as well as accurate and unobtrusive devices that will permit continuous blood pressure measurement and monitoring for a wide variety of patients, allowing them to perform their daily activities without any disturbance. Technological advancements in the last decade have created opportunities for using various devices as a part of ambient assisted living for improving quality of life for people in their natural environment. The main goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of various methodologies for continuous cuff-less blood pressure measurement, as well as to evidence recently developed devices and systems for continuous blood pressure measurement that can be used in ambient assisted living applications.