Your arm position could change blood pressure reading, study says

BOSTON - How your arm is positioned when you get your blood pressure checked can make a big difference in the reading, a new study says.

The proper or gold standard way to measure someone's blood pressure is to have them rest their arm on a desk with the middle of the blood pressure cuff positioned at heart level, but most doctor's offices don't do it that way which could skew the results.

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine randomly assigned adult participants to have their blood pressure measured in three different ways - with their arm supported on a desk (the gold standard), with their hand resting on their lap, and with their arm unsupported at the side.

They found that positioning the arm on the patient's lap or by the patient's side resulted in a substantial overestimation of blood pressure readings which could lead to patients being misdiagnosed with hypertension.