Dear Dr. Roach: I recently read that many doctors and nurses have low-frequency hearing loss, resulting in a falsely elevated blood pressure measurement compared with an automated blood pressure machine. Please comment. P.I.
Accurately measuring blood pressure is very important, and there are several concerns. For the best accuracy, the blood pressure should be taken seated, with a manual mercury device using a properly sized cuff, three times, and the average recorded (as I learned years ago: thanks, Dr. William Elliott). Only very advanced automated models, costing up to thousands of dollars, can approach the accuracy of a trained clinician.
I couldn’t find the news piece you read, but it makes some sense. Health-care providers aren’t immune to losing hearing as we get older, and hearing loss can lead to inaccuracy in blood pressure measurement. Hearing loss can mean an error of several points.
There is lots of evidence that in the vast majority of cases, home and inexpensive office machines are not as accurate as humans.
