Have patient monitor own blood pressure-What a thought.

Medscape has a good summary on the current Blood pressure measurement advice. Home mesurements are important and may be a better indicator of the "real" day to day pressure than the occasional office reading.I have told patients that for years and asked them to buy an automatic cuff and to bring in their cuff and check it against the doctor's office mercury BP unit. Dr. George Burch, chief of Medicine at Tulane when I trained, told his patients that and in those days had a family member learn how to take the BP with the arm cuff and stethoscope (automatic units had not yet been invented). Burch also emphasized the importance of proper cuff size. It looks like it took 40 years for the American Heart Association to catch up with my old prof's advice.