Arterial waveform analysis to determine cardiovascular parameters

Pulsatile pressure has been recorded routinely in human cardiovascular diagnostic laboratories, operating rooms and critical care units since the present generation started work, and pulsatile flow patterns are now used increasingly both invasively and noninvasively for the quantification of a number of cardiovascular parameters. However, it is a supreme paradox that modern physicians, almost without exception, while surrounded by twenty-first century aids to diagnosis and therapy, uses the arterial pulse only to assess systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure and heart rate and rhythm, and takes no notice of the other information that the pulse is capable of imparting [1].