Blood Pressure

Blood pressure cuff and stethoscope, November 9, 2021. Courtesy of Mikayla Morton.

Assessing a Client’s Blood Pressure

• Tools:
  • Blood pressure cuff
  • Stethoscope
• Steps:
  1. Have client in a comfortable, seated position and allow them to relax
  2. Wrap the blood pressure cuff firmly around their upper arm, about 1-2 inches above the antecubital fossa
  3. Locate the client’s brachial pulse and place your stethoscope over this point
  4. Completely close the valve on the inflation bulb
  5. Use valve to inflate cuff until pulse is no longer heard, around 180 mm Hg
  6. Once the arrow reaches around 180 mm Hg, slowly begin to open the valve on the inflation bulb to let arrow drop around 2-3 mm per second
  7. Take note of the first sound heard, this is the systolic pressure (in mm Hg)
  8. Continue to listen to the pulse, when it disappears and can no longer be heard, this is the diastolic pressure (in mm Hg)
  9. After being sure that the last pulsation was heard, open valve on inflation bulb completely to deflate the cuff and remove from client
  10. Document client’s blood pressure as (systole) mm Hg/(diastole) mm Hg

(Gett & Romaniw, 2021)

Assessing blood pressure, November 4, 2021. Courtesy of Mikayla Morton.

• Blood Pressure Classifications:

Category	Systolic (mm Hg)		Diastolic (mm Hg)
Optimal	< 120	and	< 80
Normal	< 130	and	< 85
High – normal	120 – 139	or	85 – 89
Hypertension (HTN)
Stage 1	140 – 159	or	90 – 99
Stage 2	160 – 179	or	100 – 109
Stage 3	≥ 180	or	≥ 110

The Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High BP, NIH publication No. 98-4080, November 1997.

• Notes pertaining to values:
  • Blood pressure consistently lower than 90/60 would be considered hypotension
  • The systolic pressure should increase with exercise while the diastolic pressure should maintain or drop

(Gett & Romaniw, 2021)

References

Gett, M., & Romaniw, A. (2021, September 1). Vitals [Lecture Notes]. Brightspace. https://mylearning.chatham.edu/d2l/le/content/21252/Home

Morton, M. (2021, November 4). Assessing blood pressure [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bti8b3zLSjI

Morton, M. (Photographer). (2021). Blood pressure cuff and stethoscope [Photograph].

The Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High BP, NIH publication No. 98-4080, November 1997.