Blood pressure cuff: Does size matter?

Does cuff size affect blood pressure readings?

- Cindy / Canada

Answer

For accurate blood pressure readings, it's important to use the proper size blood pressure cuff. Using a blood pressure cuff that's smaller than recommended generally leads to falsely high blood pressure readings. Likewise, using a blood pressure cuff that's larger than recommended also can lead to false blood pressure readings — although the difference isn't likely to be as great. The shape of your upper arm may affect blood pressure readings, too, if it interferes with the optimum application of the blood pressure cuff.

If you're concerned about your blood pressure readings, you might ask your doctor to check your blood pressure several times with the same cuff in the same arm. Averaging multiple readings taken during the same visit should approximate your "true" blood pressure at that point in time.

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