What’s the best practice for measuring your blood pressure at home? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Even if you have high blood pressure when it’s measured in your doctor’s office, you may not really have it at all. That’s according to Tammy Brady, author of a Johns Hopkins study looking at the impact of arm position on blood pressure measurement. She says patient participation in confirming office findings is critical.

Brady: Out of office blood pressure measurement is key to the diagnosis of hypertension. There's known phenomenon of white coat effect or white coat hypertension and so anytime that there's an elevation of blood pressure in a clinical setting it really needs to be confirmed out of the office. A lot of times it's done with the home blood pressure monitor. We as healthcare providers who are prescribing this to help us with our diagnosis have a real responsibility to educate patients on the proper steps for blood pressure measurement because so much rides on this measurement.     :28

Being seated, having your arm supported, and perhaps resting for a moment will enable more accurate results, Brady says, and calibrating your home device is also important. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.