Yk those blood pressure measuring things doctors use? Ones that press your arm really hard and stuff? How do they work?
In: Technology
There are two components to measuring blood pressure. There’s the inflatable cuff that you noticed and there’s also a stethoscope. The cuff has a little gauge on it that displays how much pressure it’s putting on your arm. The idea is to put so much pressure on your arm that the blood stops flowing through it. Once that’s done, the pressure is slowly let off.
So, where does the stethoscope come in? That’s put against your arm’s blood vessels so that the doctor can listen to when the blood starts flowing again, while at the same time monitoring the little gauge. Here, we have two things the doctor checks for. First, there’s the *systolic* blood pressure, which represents how much pressure is inside your arteries when your heart beats, which is typically around 140 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) in most healthy people. The pressure on the cuff keeps going down until the doctor can hear the blood constantly flowing, even when the heart is relaxed. That’s the *diastolic* blood pressure, which is usually around 80 mmHg.
Blood pressure is then written as the systolic pressure over the diastolic pressure, so that a normal result appears as 140/80. If the result is different, that’s an indicator that you have some sort of major health issue that might affect how well your heart works, either now or in the future.
The blood pressure is higher when your heart is contracted (systolic pressure) and lower when your heart is resting (diastolic pressure). You apply pressure from the outside on your artery. Now:
* If the pressure is higher than systolic pressure, the artery would be squeezed shut.
* If the pressure is lower than diastolic pressure, the artery would be open.
* If the pressure is between these two the artery would alternately open and shut.
The way you measure blood pressure is that you listen for the sound of the pulse at the artery while slowly lowering the pressure in the sleeve. Once you start hearing the pulse, you mark the systolic pressure. Once you stop hearing it, you mark the diastolic pressure. This can be done by a human with a stethoscope or with a device that automates the whole process.
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