title: Age-related factors that confound peripheral pulse timing characteristics in Caucasian children.
abstract: Characteristics obtained from peripheral pulses can be used to assess the status of cardiovascular system of subjects. However, nonintrusive techniques are preferred when prolonged monitoring is required for their comfort. Pulse transit time (PTT) measurement has showed its potentials to monitor timing changes in peripheral pulse in cardiovascular and respiratory studies. In children, the common peripheries used for these studies are fingers or toes. Presently, there is no known study conducted on children to investigate the possible physiologic parameters that can confound PTT measure at these sites. In this study, PTT values from both peripheral sites were recorded from 55 healthy Caucasian children (39 male) with mean age of 8.4+/-2.3 years (range 5-12 years). Peripheries' path length, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were measured to investigate their contributions to PTT measurement. The results reveal that PTT is significantly related to all parameters (P<0.05), except for DBP and MAP. Age is observed to be the dominant factor that affects PTT at both peripheries in a child. Regression equations for PTT were derived for measuring from a finger and toe, (6.09 age+189.2) ms and (6.70 age+243.0) ms, respectively.
authors.affiliation: School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Australia. jong@itee.uq.edu.au
authors.forename: J Y A
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Foo
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: M-A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cooper
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003971:Diastole; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000098:blood supply; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011674:Pulse; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013599:Systole; D013997:Time Factors; D014034:Toes / Q000098:blood supply; D044465:White People