Blood Pressure

Anatomy class starts and we find out that we are going to be using blood pressure cuffs. There is six kids in our class so we usually always have the same partners for everything. We have been working on blood and blood pressure for the past two weeks now and our teacher wanted us to learn how to check someones blood pressure. My partner I had, had already checked someones previously other than this class so she was somewhat familiar with doing it. I had never done it before and was a little nervous so I told my friend. My friend was very supportive of me and kept reassuring me that everything would be okay and I could do it. We both had our own stethoscopes and we shared a blood pressure cuff. She went first so that I could watch her so I could be more informed and have had already seen it before I performed it on her. Our teacher told us that we need to put the blood pressure cuff around the upper arm firmly. It shouldn’t be too tight or too loose because you have to fit the end of the stethoscopes underneath the bottom of the cuff and above the bend of the elbow to get a pulse.

The first thing we had to do was check to see if we could hear our partners heartrate with everything normal. My partner was moving the end of the stethoscope around my arm to make it so she could hear my pulse and when she could, I held it there so she could have both hands available. The next step to do was hold the gauge and bulb in each hand. In order to check ones blood pressure you have to squeeze the bulb until the dial reached one hundred and sixty. The next step was to slowly release the pressure release valve to get the smaller number.

I was confused at this point when she was explaining it to us in the hallway. I wasn’t sure if that on accident you started lower or higher, it would be wrong or not. I was also confused on when I was supposed to release the pressure release valve. So, I watched my partner perform it on me, so that maybe I could figure it out myself. After she did it and gave me my numbers, I was still confused so I had the teacher come over before it was my turn and I asked her my question. I knew all of the other kids in my class understood what she had told us, and they got the hang of it fast, but I was’t one hundred percent sure on what I was supposed to do. I didn’t want to mess it up for my partner because it isn’t good to check someones blood pressure more than once on the same arm. I asked her that if someone went to one hundred and eighty on the gauge on accident or on purpose, if they would hear a heartbeat. She informed me that it is almost never going to happen and if it did, then the patient has something severely wrong with them.

That helped me understand that the reason some nurses go to a higher number is to have the time to be able to hear that first heart beat and get the top number. If I did not ask my teacher this question I would still be wondering why people go so high on the gauge. I actually asked two questions during this class period. I wanted to make sure I did everything correctly so even though I knew everyone else knew what they were doing so I felt a little out of place asking questions, but because I did, I felt way more confident than if I didn’t ask them.

Photo on Foter.com