measuring blood pressure

[Firza]

Hello everybody, I have a question regarding taking blood pressure from patients. I know the systolic pressure is when u hear the first tone and diastolic pressure is when the tone is last heard. But sometimes before I hear a real tone, I hear a pulsating sound, like a static sound or murmur or something, hard to explain. When i hear that sound, is that the systolic pressure? Sometimes that pulsating sound lasts 20 mmHG.

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[Critical Mass]

Is there a school out there where you don't take a BP until third year?

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Get a cheaper stethoscope.

 

[deleted87716]

Here ya' go, with pictures: http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/teaching/undergrad/projects/2003/group_03/how.html

 

[Pox in a box]

When i hear that sound, is that the systolic pressure? Sometimes that pulsating sound lasts 20 mmHG.

That's your heartbeat. In seriousness, you shouldn't hear anything until you hear the initial systolic sound which is continuous until it ends, where you note that pressure is the diastolic pressure. Practice on your friends. Have someone check their pressure and let you listen for it right around that point (i.e. 120/80) and you'll quickly realize what you're listening for in a BP measurement. Get to know this because you will be tested on it in one way or another very soon.

 

[Pegsie]

Are you sure you're not hearing an auscultatory gap? In Bates, it recommends that you first estimate how high to inflate the cuff by feeling when the radial artery pulsation disappears, then adding 30 mm Hg to it. When you get an auscultatory gap, you're supposed to report the BP as, for example, "200/98 with an auscultatory gap from 170 - 150."

 

[Critical Mass]

Get a cheaper stethoscope.

Don't utter this in allo. Most there think that you have to have a Cardio III to be cool.

Ditto on the auscultatory gap.