Self monitoring Blood pressure

Patients engaged in their health care do better, expert says

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) - Tracking your own at home can help you control, a new research review finds.

And if you have a clinician's help in monitoring your blood pressure, you'll likely do even better, at least in the short term, according to the study, which was published Aug. 6 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

"For adults with who are willing and able to monitor their blood pressure at home in conjunction with their center, self-monitored blood pressure can be a useful tool to lower pressure, and possibly lower the risk of cardiovascular events, at least for the short term, " said lead researcher Dr. Ethan Balk, from the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Whether the benefits extend beyond one year needs further research, said Balk, whose team looked at more than 50 studies on the effectiveness of home pressure monitoring.

Self-monitoring includes keeping a record of the readings so a physician can determine if your blood pressure medicine is working effectively or needs tweaking. Left uncontrolled, can lead to, and damage, and disability.

Exactly how home monitoring keeps blood pressure levels low isn't clear, Balk said. "Likely reasons are improved monitoring and tailored treatment of blood pressure by both the clinician or nursing staff and the patient, and increased incentives to control one's diet and increase, " he said. "But these explanations are purely conjectural."

Also, it isn't clear to what degree additional support enhances the benefits or which methods of additional support are best, Balk said.

"An important caveat is that the evidence refers to self-monitored blood pressure used in conjunction with clinicians and/or nurses who are using and monitoring the information, " he said.

The results don't apply to people who decide on their own to measure their blood pressure at home without consulting medical professionals, he said.