High blood pressure is diagnosed by measuring a person’s blood pressure. There are multiple methods for measuring blood pressure, including using hand-powered cuffs and a stethoscope, semiautomatic monitors (either at the doctor’s office or at home), or ambulatory blood pressure monitors (which collect blood pressure readings several times per hour across a 24-hour period).
Broadly speaking, a systolic and diastolic blood pressure of <120 and <80 mmHg is considered optimal.[1] Hypertension is diagnosed at the doctor’s office if they measure a systolic and/or diastolic blood pressure of ≥ 130 and ≥ 80 mmHg over multiple measurements.
References
- ^Frank L J Visseren, François Mach, Yvo M Smulders, David Carballo, Konstantinos C Koskinas, Maria Bäck, Athanase Benetos, Alessandro Biffi, José-Manuel Boavida, Davide Capodanno, Bernard Cosyns, Carolyn Crawford, Constantinos H Davos, Ileana Desormais, Emanuele Di Angelantonio, Oscar H Franco, Sigrun Halvorsen, F D Richard Hobbs, Monika Hollander, Ewa A Jankowska, Matthias Michal, Simona Sacco, Naveed Sattar, Lale Tokgozoglu, Serena Tonstad, Konstantinos P Tsioufis, Ineke van Dis, Isabelle C van Gelder, Christoph Wanner, Bryan Williams, ESC Scientific Document Group, ESC National Cardiac Societies2021 ESC Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practiceEur Heart J.(2021 Sep 7)