Is the Origin of Korotkoff Sounds Rooted in the Resonance of the Arterial Wall?

[Swamp Thing]

What is the "official" thinking today about the origin of Korotkoff sounds?

Has this 2015 paper found general acceptance?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1933171115007068

The idea IIUC is that the stretched arterial wall acts as a resonant system, and what we hear are transient excitations of this resonator.

Have there been critiques of this hypothesis?

 

[jim mcnamara]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539778/
is a current reference. You decide.

Um, why is this of interest....?

 

[berkeman]

Um, why is this of interest....?

It might be related to their recent thread asking about taking BP measurements:

Is it ok to gently squeeze the bulb just after crossing the systolic or diastolic threshold, just to make sure of the exact value?

 

[jim mcnamara]

Oooh. Not a good assumption. BP mensuration results are a snapshot of a changing system. It is not a fixed unchanging declaration of a static system, more like a sample.

Its is a hydrostatic pressure measurement at a moment in time:
From the text above:
The pressure in a liquid at a given depth is called the hydrostatic pressure. This can be calculated using the hydrostatic equation: P = rho * g * d, where P is the pressure, rho is the density of the liquid, g is gravity (9.8 m/s^2) and d is the depth (or height) of the liquid.

During measurement if the patient raises an arm it changes the result. Changes in hormone levels like cortisol can really mess up readings - e.g., a kid getting a BP who is petrified of the whole process. So the result is not necessarily indicative of other pathologies. Clinicians know this and have to deal with the uncertainty - maybe by getting a series of readings or giving the kid a lollipop. Or treating the result as a sample of a population of these readings, and have, through experience, generated a working idea of true outliers caused by medical problems. And otherwise just go with the result as frightened kid "normal"