A Ubiquitous Real-Time Motion Artifact Rejection technique for Remote NIBP Monitoring of Hypertensive Patients

The periodic and frequent measurements of blood pressure for hypertensive patients are must to do their effective and efficient monitoring. Existing non-invasive blood pressure measurement instruments mandate a relaxed posture – it is considered a prerequisite to factor out motion artifacts in the reading – before taking the final reading. This requirement causes not only a great discomfort for the patients but also renders the equipment useless in providing ubiquitous and real-time onthe-move remote monitoring of the patients. In this paper, we propose a novel technique to get accurate measurement of the blood pressure while walking with the free end motion of the arm. The approach utilizes an accelerometer mounted on the cuff wrapped over the upper arm in order to determine the noise superimposed over the oscillometric signal of the patient’s blood pressure. The system is tested on a mannequin’s limb simulated to have arm movements with the oscillometric signal. The results of our analysis show that the system is robust in determining the correct blood pressure irrespective of the noise level produced due to the physical movement of the arm. We believe that our system will become a cardinal component of a cost-efficient, highly-reliable ubiquitous remote patient monitoring system. Keywords— Non-Invasive Blood Pressure, Oscillometric Signal, Accelerometer, Simulator.