Blood Presure Measurement during SCUBA Diving

by Justin Karcher
(Denton, Tx, USA)

Hey guys,

I have been trying to figure out how exactly to go about measuring blood pressure responses to SCUBA diving. I have looked into automatic blood pressure devices (around $3,000, ABPM 6100 Welch Allyn) and even this device will not work properly underwater due to inaccuracies in pressure readings.

How exactly is blood pressure monitored and recorded that is reported in the scientific literature? If you guys know of any articles or authors to look up, that would be helpful as well.

Thanks,
Justin

Hi Justin,

While I have posted articles on the results of scuba diving and blood pressure from various studies, I don't have the details on how the data was actually collected.

I would try looking on Divers Alert Network (www.diversalertnetwork.org) and scuba-doc.com. You can read their literature and studies regarding scuba diving and blood pressure.

If the articles themselves don't answer your questions, take a look at their bibliography or citation of sources. That should give you plenty of places to investigate how the data was collected.

Hopefully these will help your search. Thanks for getting in touch and let us know how it goes.

Dianne