Borderline Hypertension

diagram of BP profile

Plot of borderline hypertension. This patient who has had borderline clinic blood pressures has persisting borderline pressures on ABPM.

Ambulatory blood pressure is particularly useful in deciding whether patients with borderline clinic blood pressures should actually be labelled as hypertensive. There is a case for characterising the 24 h profile in all newly diagnosed hypertensive patients before antihypertensive therapy is prescribed.

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Explanation of ABPM plots

Explanation of ABPM plot

Each of the ABPM profiles in this package is laid out as follows:

X axis: time (24 h)
Y axis: blood pressure (mm Hg)
The yellow line adjacent to the Y axis represents the clinic blood pressure obtained for that patient.
The horizontal grey bars represent the accepted normal limits for systolic and diastolic blood pressure obtained by ABPM, including the nocturnal dip.
The vertical bars on the left of the profile represent the "white coat" window, when the effect of medical staff on blood pressure may still be evident.
The darker vertical band of shading represents night time.