Patent ID: 8708921

Claim:
A method for measuring reactive hyperemia in a subject, comprising: performing a first segmental cuff plethysmography; generating a baseline arterial compliance curve and/or a baseline pressure-area (P-A) curve on a portion of the body of the subject, wherein the cuff pressure is increased to a first peak cuff pressure and immediately reduced from the first peak cuff pressure; performing a second segmental cuff plethysmography; generating a hyperemic arterial compliance curve and/or a hyperemic P-A curve, wherein the cuff pressure is increased to a second peak level, maintained at the second peak cuff pressure for a predetermined period of time, and then reduced from the second peak cuff pressure; calculating the difference between the baseline arterial compliance curve and the hyperemic arterial compliance curve as an area between the arterial compliance curves, and/or the difference between the baseline P-A curve and the hyperemic P-A curve as an area between the P-A curves; and measuring a level of reactive hyperemia based on the area between the arterial compliance curves and/or the area between the P-A curves, wherein a first cuff compliance curve is generated during the first segmental cuff plethysmography and a second cuff compliance curve is generated during the second segmental cuff plethysmography, wherein said first and second cuff compliance curves are generated using a metering pump to measure the volume change in a cuff, and a pressure sensor to measure pressure change for each known volume change, and wherein the metering pump is a low-frequency pump operating at a frequency that is not higher than the arterial cycle frequency.