Arm position during blood pressure check may lead to wrong reading, study finds [View all]

Blood pressure readings may not be accurate unless a person’s arm is positioned correctly, a new study suggests.

A comparison of blood pressure readings taken while people held their arms three different ways — leaning on a surface, resting on the lap or hanging by the side of the body — showed certain positions could lead to a significant increase in systolic pressure, the upper number in a blood pressure reading, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Systolic refers to the amount of pressure in a person’s arteries, when the heart sends blood throughout the body.

The size of the difference, nearly 7 points in the arm dangling position, was a surprise, said the study’s senior author, Dr. Tammy Brady, a pediatrician and epidemiologist and medical director of the pediatric hypertension program at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

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To learn whether arm position made a difference in blood pressure readings, Brady and her colleagues recruited 133 adults, 78% of them Black and 52% female. The study volunteers’ ages ranged from 18 to 80.

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