24 Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring
Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) involves recording of your blood pressure as you move around and living your normal daily life.
It is normally performed over a period of 24 hours. It uses a small digital blood pressure machine that is attached to a belt around your body and which is connected to a cuff around your upper arm. The monitor is small enough to carry while you can go about your normal daily life and even sleep with it on.
ABPM is the most accurate method for confirming a diagnosis of hypertension, and its use should reduce unnecessary treatment in people who do not have true hypertension. ABPM has also been shown to be superior to other methods of multiple blood pressure measurement for predicting blood pressure-related clinical events.
NICE recommends that people with suspected hypertension are offered ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) to confirm a diagnosis of hypertension.