Visual detection of short-wave blood pressure fluctuations

Blood pressure provides important information about a person's state of health. It changes greatly during physical activity, but blood pressure at rest also indicates abnormal or pathological conditions. However, periodic fluctuations in blood pressure are also superimposed on blood pressure, which have so far been difficult to measure and thus remain unconsidered when blood pressure is determined. This paper presents a contactless method for measuring periodic blood pressure fluctuations using a camera. The measurements show that the periodic blood pressure fluctuations can occur sporadically at rest. Also, Traube-Mayer-Hering waves are detectable fully contact-less. It is suggested that the blood pressure fluctuations can provide further information about health status, stress and lifestyle. Our results regarding the contactless visual detection of blood pressure fluctuations contribute to the development of new and unobtrusive measurement methods implementable in ordinary IT-tools for large-scale application even in non-medical contexts such as ordinary office environments.