Wearable ultrasound patch offers continuous blood pressure monitoring

The wearable ultrasound blood pressure sensor has been clinically validated on over 100 patients and could improve the quality of cardiovascular health monitoring in the clinic and at home. The sensor is detailed in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“Traditional blood pressure measurements with a cuff, which are limited to providing one-time blood pressure values, can miss critical patterns. Our wearable patch offers a continuous stream of blood pressure waveform data, allowing it to reveal detailed trends in blood pressure fluctuations,” study co-first author Sai Zhou said in a statement.

When worn on the forearm, the sensor is said to offer precise, real-time readings of blood pressure deep within the body. The patch is made of a silicone elastomer that houses piezoelectric transducers sandwiched between stretchable copper electrodes. The transducers transmit and receive ultrasound waves that track changes in the diameter of blood vessels, which are then converted into blood pressure values.

The wearable ultrasound patch builds upon an earlier prototype that was pioneered by the lab of Sheng Xu, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at UC San Diego.