Technology has the power to do wonders, and this is becoming true. According to recent research measuring blood pressure might become as easy as taking a video selfie.
A study released in the American Heart Association journal Circulation claims that a simple smartphone could measure blood pressure by detecting blood flow changes in facial videos, enabling a contactless and non-invasive blood pressure monitoring method.
How does this technology work? While the users are trying for a video selfie with its smartphone, ambient light penetrates the user’s outer layer, allowing digital optical sensors to visualize and extract blood flow patterns, which can be used to monitor the blood pressure.
The researchers trialed the technology by measuring the blood flow of 1,328 Canadian and Chinese adults by capturing two-minute videos using iPhones equipped with transdermal optical imaging software. They found optical imaging blood monitoring nearly 95 percent accurate and diastolic blood pressure at almost 96 percent accuracy.
But this technology also comes with certain limitations, including that the participant’s selfie video should be taken in a well-controlled environment with fixed lighting. Even the samples that were taken for the trial lacked variety as none of the subjects had extreme skin tones. Hence, it is unknown whether it will work for extreme skin tone conditions.
