March 20th, 2009
How can I be sure of blood pressure readings?
Darren Wriggley said:
On my last visit to my GP nurse noted my blood pressure values by means of a pump on the machine and a stethoscope. Certainly, this method allows for human error - or the hard court added distraction to what was actually really painful uncomfortable. Should I trust these measures? I read here that the monitors http://www.blood-pressure-monitoring.org/blood-pressure-monitors.htm modern blood pressure are better so why would use the outpatient still old-fashioned methods?
Tags: Blood Pressure Monitors, Distraction, Modern Blood, Nurse, Stethoscope
Filed under: Stethoscope
The machines you find in "the drug stores; drift" over time. Are very accurate out of the box but with the passage of time and errors. When I calibrated are good as new, but its expensive and not regulated by the FDA (food aministration a drug) so that the deposits should not calibrate it regularly. But I guess in a hospital that will pay attention to that most peculiar. Im sure all comes down to cost. It 's the $ 300 for a stethoscope and a nurse takes 15mins to do the test when they have to do the tests anyway. It 's well over $ 5000 for a machine that can do only 1 thing … Moreover, a person can tell if something is wrong. Human error is what it is + -2%? If the machine malfunctions it does not know that your reading is off. The nurse will know whether you are a smoker, the overweight, etc. and can make an assessment of your health before even the sample is taken. In short, I 'll require the nurse all day.
Here 's what happened once when I did my blood pressure reading. When the nurse told me the numbers, I asked him to try again with those numbers because one or the other would have to be damaged or in a coma! This was taken on the arm again and the numbers came up, but still I didn 't know to read it properly. In order to respond to your question, I don 't think that you can always trust these readings. In addition, your blood pressure can go up and down significantly in some moments, so it 's important not to have too much confidence in any one reading alone. The best thing is to have a healthy lifestyle.
As someone who has problems with blood pressure, it would prefer to believe my surgery to use the '' old-fashioned, method at any time. I personally don 't have much respect for those digital and every single time I go get it checked, it always makes us twice? usually with quite a differnece and readings can be different from arm to arm. Pi? old generation GP 's tends to stick to the original, wish mine did.