Sensory block duration after spinal anaesthesia supplemented with intravenous dexamethasone: a randomised controlled double-blinded trial.

Background: Intravenous dexamethasone prolongs duration of analgesia or sensory block after injection of local anaesthetics close to peripheral nerves by an average of 8 h. Uncertainty remains on the potential increase in the duration of sensory block after spinal anaesthesia. The objective of this randomised controlled double-blinded trial was to investigate whether dexamethasone i.

Photoplethysmography-Based Blood Pressure Monitoring Could Improve Patient Outcome during Anesthesia Induction.

During anesthesia, noncritical patients are routinely monitored via noninvasive cuff-based blood pressure (BP) monitors. Due to the noncontinuous nature of the monitoring, the BP values of the patient remain unavailable between consecutive cuff measurements, carrying the risk of missing rapid and sudden variations in BP. We evaluated the added value of using a photoplethysmography (PPG)-based continuous BP measurement device in addition to the standard cuff-based monitoring in a cohort of 40 patients in comparison with the current approach, in which only intermittent cuff-based measurements are available.

Accuracy of blood pressure measurement across BMI categories using the OptiBP™ mobile application.

Purpose: Obesity is a clear risk factor for hypertension. Blood pressure (BP) measurement in obese patients may be biased by cuff size and upper arm shape which may affect the accuracy of measurements. This study aimed to assess the accuracy of the OptiBP smartphone application for three different body mass index (BMI) categories (normal, overweight and obese).

Smartphone based blood pressure measurement: accuracy of the OptiBP mobile application according to the AAMI/ESH/ISO universal validation protocol.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of the OptiBP mobile application based on an optical signal recorded by placing the patient's fingertip on a smartphone's camera to estimate blood pressure (BP). Measurements were carried out in a general population according to existing standards of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Methods: Participants were recruited during a scheduled appointment at the hypertension clinic of Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland.

Blood pressure measurements with the OptiBP smartphone app validated against reference auscultatory measurements.

Mobile health diagnostics have been shown to be effective and scalable for chronic disease detection and management. By maximizing the smartphones' optics and computational power, they could allow assessment of physiological information from the morphology of pulse waves and thus estimate cuffless blood pressure (BP). We trained the parameters of an existing pulse wave analysis algorithm (oBPM), previously validated in anaesthesia on pulse oximeter signals, by collecting optical signals from 51 patients fingertips via a smartphone while simultaneously acquiring BP measurements through an arterial catheter.

Automated Pulse Oximeter Waveform Analysis to Track Changes in Blood Pressure During Anesthesia Induction: A Proof-of-Concept Study.

Background: Intraoperative hypotension is associated with postoperative complications and death. Oscillometric brachial cuffs are used to measure arterial pressure (AP) in most surgical patients but may miss acute changes in AP. We hypothesized that pulse oximeter waveform analysis may help to detect changes in systolic AP (SAP) and mean AP (MAP) during anesthesia induction.