Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/3212
Date of Award
12-2025
Degree Name
MS in Biomedical Engineering
Department/Program
Biomedical Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Michael D. Whitt
Advisor Department
Biomedical Engineering
Advisor College
College of Engineering
Abstract
Cardiovascular disease remains as a leading cause of death for both sexes and across all racial backgrounds. Continuing to research causes, early predictors, and preventative actions are paramount to ensuring that cardiovascular disease starts to decrease in its activity. Endothelial dysfunction is the earliest known predictor of cardiovascular disease, therefore investigating early detection methods of endothelial dysfunction can improve health outcomes. This study revolves around a non-invasive calibrated cuff device that uses the principles of segmental plethysmography and oscilliometry to measure arterial compliance of baseline and induced hyperemic conditions in human subjects to determine how well arteries vasodilate in response to increased blood flow. The device was also modified in this study in hopes to increase the strength of this data. There are many things in daily life that can affect endothelial function such as smoking, drinking alcohol, salt intake, and activity level. This study also provides a comprehensive review of how these lifestyle choices affect endothelial function, and whether the calibrated cuff device can detect differences based on those variables. Although there were no statistically significant differences found in this study, it did reveal trends of how much effect each variable had on the study compared to one another. Activity had a p-value of 0.7815, smoking 0.2755, salt intake, 0.43, and activity 0.7815 for the 0 – 75 mmHg transmural pressure range. Additionally, coefficients of variation were taken to determine how consistent the modified device was in taking accurate data points, and the average coefficient of variation was found to be 48%. Given these pieces of data, this method was found to not be an effective modification of the device, and the variables measured need more isolation, or increased population numbers to see statistically significant differences.