Taking a blood pressure. .

Blood Pressure Cuff

The main purpose of taking a blood pressure is to measure of the pressure exerting the blood circulating on the walls of the bodies arteries. This helps nurses and doctors detect any possibly abnormal changes in valves. The procedure you go through when you do this is apply the round cold part of the stethoscope under your BF cuff placed just above the crease in the middle of the arm, usually in good alignment with the heart. When this is in proper place, you use the sphygmomanometer (pump) and air it up to around 180 depending on what age of person you are dealing with. When you get up to this, you slowly deflate the cuff and when you hear the first "lub-dub" this is the first detected heart beat and when it stops this will give you your diastolic and systolic pressure. A pretty normal BP is around 70-120. Anything lower should be reported to check for possible problems.