How to: Measure Blood Pressure

An introductory video explaining how to manually measure blood pressure. In this video, we are sharing with you the auscultatory method of determining systolic and diastolic arterial pressures. The cuff is placed above the antecubital artery and the cuff is above the upper arm. The stethoscope is placed near the antecubital artery and no sound will be hear when there is enough pressure to close off the artery. When the pressure is slowly released, the sound of blood jetting through the vessel by the vibrations of the wall is called the Korotkoff sounds. The first sound is also the systolic pressure. The diastolic pressure is when a muffled quality occurs. Please note that the sound is often overestimated because sound can still be heard even after deflation of the cuff. This method is not 100% accurate but will give values within the 10% range. This information was written in the Textbook of Medical Physiology by Guyton and Hall. **Disclaimer: we are not medical professionals.