Development of a novel pulse wave velocity measurement system: using dual piezoelectric elements.

The aim of this study is to develop a painless system of measuring the brachial-ankle arterial pulse wave velocity (baPWV) without compression cuffs. The PWV reflects the compliance of the artery and is measured for the early diagnosis of arteriosclerotic vascular diseases. However, the conventional baPWV system, which measures four cuff pressures simultaneously, easily causes circulation block and tightening pain at the extremities. In addition, approximately 15 min are required to stabilise the blood pressure for re-examination. Therefore, we developed a novel baPWV measurement system using dual piezoelectric sensor elements. The principle of this high-sensitivity pressure pulse detection system is based on adding the two in-phase outputs from the coaxially arranged dual piezoelectric sensor. As our system facilitates the measurement of the baPWV by detecting the pulsation of an artery using sensors fixed on the skin where the pulse is palpable, it does not cause pain and reduces examination time. The coefficients of correlation between the baPWV values obtained from the conventional and present methods were 0.93 (right side) and 0.90 (left side). The results suggest that our system can be used to measure the baPWV without pressure cuffs as accurately as the conventional method.