Hypertension is often called the ‘silent killer’, and having hypertension can significantly increase the risk of cardiac events, or even death, if left untreated. It is estimated that one in three adults in the US has high blood pressure, which often remains undetected until it’s too late.
With increasing public awareness of the importance of overall health, more and more people are turning to devices that can be used at home on a regular basis, offering key insights into general wellbeing. This can be particularly useful for monitoring blood pressure, or the ‘silent killer’, due to the potential for detecting health issues earlier, which for some patients can be lifesaving.
Traditional vs. Continual Monitoring
One of the key aspects of hypertension is that the damage is time-dependent. In short, the more time the blood pressure (BP) is outside of the optimal range, the more damage that is done to the body.
Traditional methods for measuring blood pressure require the use of cuffs. While measuring blood pressure is fairly routine, it’s not typically undertaken on a regular basis. For example, your blood pressure may only be taken once or twice a year, during a check-up with a medical professional. While there is an argument that some data is better than no data, it can also be argued that collecting data so infrequently does not give an indicator of overall health and is effectively only a snapshot at a particular time-point.
Continual monitoring with 24/7 wearables like Aktiia, however, offers a comprehensive view because many measurements are taken automatically over the course of the day. This can actually provide key insights into your health and can be used to identify any patterns or trends, as well as monitor the outcome of any actions you might be taking to manage your blood pressure.
Introducing Aktiia and TTR
Aktiia is a revolutionary cuffless blood pressure device that continually monitors your blood pressure throughout the day. This enables you to see any peaks or troughs in data, or identify any events that cause significant changes in the values. The Aktiia bracelet (and the cuff) supports time-in-target-range (TTR) monitoring, which is a revolutionary method used to measure the total amount of time that a person’s blood pressure is within the normal range and can be used as metric to identify risk of adverse cardiovascular events.
Why is this important? Keeping blood pressure within a healthy range lowers the risk of many diseases including heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, aneurysms among others.
How Aktiia Works
Aktiia, a wrist-worn device, provides continual blood pressure measurements through using optical sensors, eliminating the need for a cuff or interruptions to your daily life. As noted above, there are many benefits to continual monitoring of your blood pressure and the valuable data it yields, including the ability to calculate your blood pressure TTR in real-time.
For example, users can easily see patterns and make lifestyle changes to better manage their blood pressure and doctors or medical professionals can use the continual data to create more effective treatment strategies, tailored specifically to the patient.
Further Study Findings on the Aktiia Device
A large-scale study, recently published by the Aktiia team in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, analysed 2.3 million blood pressure readings from over 5,000 European users of the Aktiia cuffless monitor. This work showed that the metric, time-in-target-range (TTR), can be a valuable piece of data in the management of hypertension. Importantly, this study also showed that the TTR can be accurately determined using the Aktiia device after continual monitoring has been undertaken for at least 7 days (which leads to a 90% or greater accuracy for hypertension risk classification of a user). While this data could be collected using the traditional cuff-based monitor, the frequency with which data would need to be collected means that in reality this approach would not be feasible, or at least very disruptive for patients.
Interestingly, this study showed that when continual monitoring using the Aktiia devices was used over 15 days as a basis for assessing cardiovascular risk, the traditional cuff-based techniques actually showed a higher error rate: one in four (26%) ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) patients and almost half of the patients (45%) using home monitoring schedules were misclassified. While the reasons for this inaccuracy of using the cuff-based approach are unclear, the evidence does support the effectiveness of the Aktiia device for assessing cardiovascular risk of patients.
Protect your heart health with Aktiia’s innovative BP monitoring. See how continual measurement can keep your blood pressure in check. Read more!
Additional Survey Insights about Aktiia
A recent survey published in the Journal of Hypertension indicated strong patient preference for continual, cuffless blood pressure monitoring, such as that provided by the Aktiia device. This preference was primarily because patients found the Aktiia method to be more comfortable and convenient. Importantly, this study shows the potential for cuffless monitors to improve patient engagement to long-term monitoring and adherence to treatment of hyper- or hypotension, improving patient outcomes in the long-term.
For further reading on heart health and blood pressure management, check out our recommended articles and related clinical studies. If you have any questions or need personalised advice, consult your healthcare professional.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and not medical advice. Consult your physician before making any changes to your lifestyle. The author and publisher are not responsible for any adverse effects resulting from the use or application of the information presented in this article.
Sources
What is High Blood Pressure? American Heart Association. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/the-facts-about-high-blood-pressure (Accessed December 2024)
Hypotension. National Health Service, UK. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/low-blood-pressure-hypotension (Accessed December 2024)
High blood pressure. British Heart Foundation. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/high-blood-pressure (Accessed December 2024)
N. D. L. Fisher; T. P. Almedia; D. Perruchoud; J. Shah; J. Sola (2024). Optimizing time-in-target-range assessment for blood pressure: insights from a large-scale study with continual cuffless monitoring. Front. Med., 11, 01. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2024.1396962
T. P. De Almeida; D. Perruchoud; J. Alexandre et al. (2024). Survey indicates greater patient preference for Aktiia’s cuffless monitor over traditional ambulatory blood pressure monitor in a cardiac rehabilitation program. J. Hypertension, 42 (Suppl 1), e73. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.hjh.0001019976.31830.ed
