Pulse Rate and Blood Pressure Experiment
Uploaded by CaseyP on Nov 03, 2017
Pulse Rate and Blood Pressure Experiment
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Pulse and Blood Pressure Experiment
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
The purpose of this experiment was to determine how diastolic and systolic arterial pressures as well as heart rate are affected by exercise, posture and cognitive stressor. The experiment also sought to find the difference between baseline measurements and the measurements taken under the conditions described above. In the experiment, pulse rate was found through location of radial artery while diastolic and systolic blood pressures were measured using a stethoscope and sphygmomameter.
Background
The human body can only function properly when its various systems are operating at optimum levels. One of the body systems that needs to be maintained at equilibrium is the supply of blood (mainly water, nutrients and oxygen) to all body parts. Regulation of blood pressure helps maintain such supply. Pressure is defined as force per unit area. Thus blood pressure is defined as the force per unit area that blood exerts on veins and arteries. The pressure is highest when blood leaves the left ventricle and lowest during ventricular filling. The blood pressure for a normal person is approximately 120/80 mmHg. The higher reading represents systolic blood pressure while the lower reading represents diastolic blood pressure (Shier et al., 2015).
The average of systolic and diastolic pressure is mean arterial pressure (MAP) and is given as a product of cardiac output (CO) and vascular resistance (R). In the formula, cardiac output is the quantity of blood that is pumped per minute from each ventricle while resistance is the level of opposition that is encountered by the blood as it goes through the arteries and veins.
Cardiac output is the product of stroke volume (SV) and heart rate (HR). Stroke volume is the quantity of blood that is pumped from the ventricles in a heartbeat. Pulse rate, on the other hand, is the number of heart beats per minute (Marieb & Hoehn, 2016).
There are a number of inputs that regulate cardiovascular system. They include baroreceptors which regulate the system’s activities based on blood pressure and chemoreceptors which regulate based on oxygen, hydrogen ions and carbon dioxide changes.
Hypotheses
For healthy adults it is expected that reclining for 3 minutes increases blood pressure slightly. This is because as the abdominal organs press over the aorta they lead to increased blood flow resistance thus leading to an increase in blood pressure. While blood pressure...