Inter-arm blood pressure difference in post-stroke patients with hemiparesis

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study was to Tinvestigate that inter-arm blood pressure (BP) difference (IAD) in post-stroke patients with hemiparesis. This study enrolled 420 post-stroke patients with hemiparesis. Simultaneous bilateral arm BP was measured with two automatic BP devices, and the systolic BP difference ≥ 10 mm Hg was recorded as sIAD. The arm with higher systolic BP (SBP) was assigned as the reference arm. Our results showed that the prevalence of sIAD was 18.1% in the total group. The paretic arms had similar mean SBP levels (133.6 ± 18.4 vs 133.8 ± 18.4 mm Hg, NS) and DBP (77.8 ± 11.5 vs 77.2 ± 10.9 mm Hg, NS) as compared with the unaffected arms. The detection rate of hypertension on the SBP values of the reference arm was higher than that on the unaffected arm (41.8% vs 36.3). In is convoluted that the prevalence of sIAD ≥ 10 mmH was 18.1% and that for dIAD ≥ 10 mmH was 9% in the post-stroke patients with hemiparesis, thus, bilateral arm BP measurement is encouraged for evaluating IAD and decreasing the miss diagnosis of hypertension.