Use of sphygmomanometer

The abbreviation of blood pressure is BP, which doctors often write.

Blood pressure refers to arterial pressure, which is usually measured by a sphygmomanometer. There are mercury sphygmomanometer, spring sphygmomanometer and electronic sphygmomanometer in use now. However, mercury sphygmomanometer is still commonly used.

Every family should bring their own sphygmomanometer, especially when there are elderly people or heart patients at home, they should learn to use it.

Let the patient stay in bed for a few minutes before measuring blood pressure. Show your right arm, always show your shoulders, straighten your elbows, and put your palms up flat.

Put the sphygmomanometer on the bed or table so that the "0" point of the sphygmomanometer is on the same plane as the patient's heart.

Wrap the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around the patient's upper arm. The lower edge of the cuff is 2 ~ 3 cm away from the cubital fossa, neither too tight nor too loose.

Put on a stethoscope, touch the brachial artery pulse in the patient's cubital fossa with your hand, and then put the stethoscope on it. At this time, you can hear the "pop" sound of arterial pulse.

Close the balloon tightly, and fill the cuff with air until you can't hear the beating of brachial artery, then slowly open the valve to reduce the pressure, and pay attention to the scale indicated by mercury column until you hear the first beating. At this time, the scale indicated by mercury column is systolic blood pressure.

The pressure continues to drop slightly until the pulsatile sound of the artery gradually increases to suddenly become soft and weak, and then the scale refers to diastolic pressure (note that the pulsatile sound does not completely disappear).

Generally, it takes two or three consecutive blood pressure measurements to get the lowest value.

The blood pressure of normal people increases with age. The systolic blood pressure of normal adults should be lower than 140 mmHg (written by doctors as mmHg) or 18.6 kPa (abbreviated as kPa). Diastolic pressure should be less than 90 mm Hg (or 12.0 kPa). The difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure is the "pulse pressure difference". Pulse pressure difference is 30 ~ 40mm Hg (or 4.0 ~ 5.3kPa).

Kilopascals are also a unit for measuring blood pressure. Many doctors use kilopascals as a unit for measuring blood pressure. 1 kPa =7.5 mmHg or 1 mmHg =0. 133 kPa.

The blood pressure of shock patients will drop rapidly, even undetected (that is, blood pressure is 0).