Empowered Patient Podcast Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring Using Optical Signal Processing with Dr. Jay Shah Aktiia
Dr. Jay Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Aktiia, discusses the importance of tracking blood pressure and the challenges of managing high blood pressure. With only one in five people with high blood pressure having it under control, long-term monitoring is crucial for better understanding blood pressure trends and optimizing health. The Aktiia wearable blood pressure monitoring device uses optical signal processing to continuously monitor blood pressure without the need for action to be taken by the patient.
Jay explains, "The real danger of high blood pressure occurs over years, decades, long periods of time of having your blood pressure outside the optimal range. It is really what causes the detrimental effects to many of the different organs of our body, of our heart, brain, kidneys, eyes, aorta, and so on. And so the importance of understanding what your blood pressure is over long periods of time is really what we're focused on at Aktiia. That's why people should be aware of and track their blood pressure on a long-term basis."
"Aktiia is a Swiss company and it was founded about five years ago. The technology has been in development for two decades by the founders, co-founders in an engineering think tank out of Switzerland. And they've been pioneers of what's called optical signal processing."
"This is taking signals from LED lights and the reflection of that light from the skin or the capillary bed, the small vessels in our skin, and deducing the numeric physiologic parameters. And they started around heart rate. They were the pioneers of understanding how to take optical signals from sensors at the wrist and create heart rate calculations. This was done way back before there were smart watches or wearables. It was done back in the early 2000s. After they got good at that, they turned to blood pressure."
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