Patent ID: 8435184

Claim:
A method of determining ageing effect and cardiovascular risk in a human patient comprising: (i) measuring an arterial pulse waveform of the patient when the patient's heart is beating regularly, (ii) extracting frequency dependent components of the pulse waveform, (iii) determining a ratio of an amplitude based value of a first harmonic (H 1 ) to an amplitude based value of a selected higher harmonic relative to the first harmonic to provide a first index of arterial ageing, (iv) determining a ratio of a product of an amplitude of H 1 with a cosine of a phase φ of H 1 to a product of an amplitude of any one or to a sum of products of amplitudes of a selected plurality of a second and subsequent harmonics (H 2 . . . H N ) with a cosine of a phase φ of each harmonic in the selected plurality to provide a second index of arterial ageing, and (v) comparing the first and second indexes to normative values of an index of arterial ageing to determine ageing effect and cardiovascular risk.