An apparatus (10) for evaluating arteriosclerosis of a living subject, comprising a pulse-wave detecting device (12, 54) which detects a pulse wave from each of a first portion (14) and a second portion (38) of the subject, each of the respective pulse waves detected from the first and second portions containing an incident-wave component; an augmentation-index determining means (88) for determining, based on the pulse wave detected from the first portion by the pulse-wave detecting device, a first augmentation index indicative of a degree of augmentation of an amplitude of the pulse wave detected from the first portion, from an amplitude of the incident-wave component of the pulse wave detected from the first portion, and determining, based on the pulse wave detected from the second portion by the pulse-wave detecting device, a second augmentation index indicative of a degree of augmentation of an amplitude of the pulse wave detected from the second portion, from an amplitude of the incident-wave component of the pulse wave detected from the second portion; and an arteriosclerosis evaluating means (92) for evaluating the arteriosclerosis of the subject, based on a comparison of the first and second augmentation indexes determined by the augmentation-index determining means. <IMAGE>
Arterisclerosis evaluating apparatus