Home
Log in
Register
SVT Rules
SearchABPI page in Wikipedia
ABPI page in Wikipedia
Jo Walker on Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:25 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankle_brachial_pressure_index
I came accross this by accident, but its intresting to see specialist subjects reach the masses.
However, i wondered about a couple of points in the text:
1) That "an ABPI of greater than 0.9 is considered normal"
Would you be happy to say your own circulation was 'normal' with an ABPI of 0.9? I rather think that 0.9 'does not suggest any significant PVD', meaning there may be a little (hence the lower than 1.0 figure) but not too bad.
2) "In a normal subject the pressure at the ankle pulses is slightly higher than at the elbow (there is reflection of the pulse pressure from the vascular bed of the feet, whereas at the elbow the artery continues on some distance to the wrist)"
I thought that it didn't matter where you placed the Doppler probe (either wrist or elbow on the radial.A) but rather where the cuff was placed - over the brachial.A. I thought that the difference in pressures (in a normal disease free pt) between arm and ankle was due to the small hydrostaic pressure effect of the arm being slightly higher than the ankle when the pt was supine or semi-supine.
I agree that a reflection pulse may be present, but this should not affect the actual pressure measured at the same point.
Am i getting too confused?
I came accross this by accident, but its intresting to see specialist subjects reach the masses.
However, i wondered about a couple of points in the text:
1) That "an ABPI of greater than 0.9 is considered normal"
Would you be happy to say your own circulation was 'normal' with an ABPI of 0.9? I rather think that 0.9 'does not suggest any significant PVD', meaning there may be a little (hence the lower than 1.0 figure) but not too bad.2) "In a normal subject the pressure at the ankle pulses is slightly higher than at the elbow (there is reflection of the pulse pressure from the vascular bed of the feet, whereas at the elbow the artery continues on some distance to the wrist)"
I thought that it didn't matter where you placed the Doppler probe (either wrist or elbow on the radial.A) but rather where the cuff was placed - over the brachial.A. I thought that the difference in pressures (in a normal disease free pt) between arm and ankle was due to the small hydrostaic pressure effect of the arm being slightly higher than the ankle when the pt was supine or semi-supine.
I agree that a reflection pulse may be present, but this should not affect the actual pressure measured at the same point.
Am i getting too confused?
Jo Walker- AVS
- Number of posts: 21
Location: Leicester
Job Title: Clinical Vascular Scientist
Registration date: 2007-12-03 
Permissions of this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum