3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
quick but needs care
Date of Review: Nov 24, 2007
The Bottom Line: Considering how many people are hypertensive, I would not hesitate to buy this device and use it!
You will be happy with this monitor but only if you follow the use instructions exactly. I found this out the hard way.
If you rest your forearm on a table, for example, you will get an artificially high blood pressure reading. After taking weeks of my meds, I realized the reason I believed my meds were not working was because I was not following the use instructions. I was resting my forearm on a table while taking measurements. When I lifted my forearm, suddenly my BP dropped by 30 points. I repeated this mistake and again got another high BP. I then lifted my forearm off the table and again the BP dropped by around 30 points.
I have also compared this wrist BP monitor to the standard cuff and stethoscope method you find in a doctor's office. I have been trained to use a cuff & stethoscope (and own a set too). I found the readings between the two methods to be close. In addition, I found the pulse readings to be fairly accurate too.
The only other drawback is the memory. There are 18 memory spaces but it is not intuitive how to clear the memory. There should also be a date/time stamp for each measurement. This should not be such a big deal considering how inexpensive digital time pieces are these days. Another nice feature would make readings downloadable to a spreadsheet in a laptop (for example) so you could either fax or email your healthcare provider.
